Student’s troupe shares dances, songs of Karen people
This year, senior biology student Pri Paw graduates from SUNY Poly and looks forward to a career in the field of health sciences. And when she’s not caring for others, she’s performing the traditional dances and songs of the Karen people (originally from Burma) with her dance troupe, Karen Utica Don.
The troupe travels around the region performing and spending many hours throughout each week practicing in preparation for the Karen New Year’s Festival held at Mohawk Valley Community College each winter.
It’s a long way from her birthplace of Burma, where she is the second child of three, growing up in Mae La Refugee Camp between Burma and Thailand after civil war between Burmese soldiers and her Karen ethnic group, forced her family to flee from their village.
She was resettled in the United States as a refugee when she was 15 years old and although she spoke no English upon her arrival, she learned quickly and eventually graduated in the top ten percent of her class at Proctor High School in 2015.
Receiving her associate’s degree from Mohawk Valley Community College, Pri Paw transferred to SUNY Poly in early 2017 where she chose to study Biology. The same desire to help others that led her to seek a career path in the health sciences also keeps her constantly motivated and involved in ways that better the world for others around her. When she’s not working on her studies in preparation for May graduation, she is a volunteer at the Midtown Utica Community Center (MUCC) as well as devoted her time to other volunteer work throughout her community.
Despite this busy schedule, she still finds the time and commitment to follow her passion for the dances and songs of her heritage.
This past September, Pri Paw danced at a Cultural Showcase at the Fort Stanwix National Monument. On November 6, she danced in front of the Capital Building in Washington, D.C., as one of a group of approximately 8,000 Karen and other ethnic minority individuals who were attending an awareness rally about the human rights violations being committed by the Burmese military and the implications of imposing sanctions.
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