Laughter and cheers filled the Paul Robeson Cultural Center's Heritage Hall Friday as students were entertained by performances hosted by the Asian Pacific American (APA) Caucus.

About 200 students experienced the cultural event titled SPOTLIGHT: Asian America, with performances from the Penn State Filipino Association (PSFA), Khmer Students Society (KSS), APA Caucus and the night's main entertainment, comedian Eliot Chang.

Four studens for PSFA opened the show by performing a traditional Filipino dance called Maglalatik, in which the students danced to a choreographed song while beating several coconut halves on their bodies in tune with the beat.

Diana Russella (junior-mechanical engineering) said she was amused and impressed by the students' performance.

"I thought it was pretty neat how they were in sync together," she said. "Pretty impressive, and the dudes overall were just banging with those coconuts."

Following PSFA, 10 KSS members performed a folk dance called the Magic Scarf dance, originating from the Cham Muslim ethnic group in Cambodia. In the dance, five male and female students swayed and danced back and forth to a dance in Cham style, with the female students using the traditional scarves to move and lead.

The caucus then warmed up the students for Chang by presenting a quick movie made by group members, titled Andy and Wing Go to Big Bowl. The movie was based off Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, and students chuckled throughout the short film.

Chang took the stage as the closer for the event by performing an hour-long comedy routine that drew mixed reactions from the crowd -- ranging from big laughs and claps to a couple of sighs and "ohs" when Chang went in detail with some of his more raunchy material.

"It was a little shocking sometimes, but still very funny," Russella said.

Russella said she was a "bit familiar" with Chang's work from what she had seen of his comedy on Comedy Central, but she also said that "seeing him live was more fun and different."

Chang tackled a variety of issues in his routine, with some less-serious ones, such as the different ways men shake hands and how guys' asking a girl out through texts, and bigger issues, such as racism, rape and stereotypes.

James Weyand (junior-chemical engineering) said he enjoyed Chang's routine because "he made light of some of the subjects people are afraid to talk about."

"Some people might have gotten offended," he said, "but I thought he did a great job in using comedy."