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Arts & Entertainment

Cupertino Breaks Barriers For a Cause

For the first time, local performing artists of Chinese, Indian and Iranian origins put together a multicultural benefit performance for Japanese earthquake relief.

It was an evening of exotic music and colorful costumes, of kebabs and cookies, of mixing and mingling.

It was also an evening that brought together distinctive and unique cultures that found common ground in Cupertino for a joint cause—to raise money for the earthquake and tsunami victims in Japan.

The Sunday-night benefit raised around $1,300, according to Ann Woo, executive director of Chinese Performing Arts of America.

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"It's not very much, but this was the first time the Chinese, Indian and Iranian friends got together to raise funds for the Japanese," says Woo. "The real significance was that we broke the barriers among ethnic communities for a good cause."

To accentuate the common qualities of different cultures and the universal nature of music, the last two programs of the benefit performance used almost identical musical instruments to play Chinese and Persian songs.

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In fact, some traditional Chinese musical instruments originally came from Persia, the former name of today's Iran.

The casual event was sponsored by the local nonprofit Chinese Performing Arts of America (CPAA.)

In the CPAA building on the corner of Bollinger Road and Wolfe Road, local performing artists of Chinese, Indian and Persian origins put on cultural shows to entertain attendees from the community.

To draw crowds, admission was free, but food was sold for the purpose of fundraising, and a big box was set out to collect donations.

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