Pitt community celebrates creativity and the arts at this year’s final C4C Open Mic Night

Despite last week’s warm weather, many students found themselves in the Cathedral of Learning’s basement to enjoy performances by fellow students. On Thursday, April 2, the Center for Creativity hosted their final Open Mic Night of the year, bringing together a variety of performances recognizing the University’s creative community. 

Open Mic Nights have been part of the Center for Creativity’s programming since 2017, when the first event was held at Nordy’s Place. After going remote in 2020 due to the COVID pandemic, Open Mic Nights found their new home in The Understory, located in the basement of the Cathedral of Learning, which opened in 2022. Open Mic Nights occur three times each semester, giving students several opportunities to perform throughout the year.

April’s Open Mic Night saw a variety of acts ranging from musical performances to spoken word poetry. The event emphasized the importance of being truly “open,” giving students the chance to perform regardless of the content of their act or their level of experience. 

Erik Schuckers, a resident of Beechview and the Center for Creativity’s communications and programming manager and interim co-director, helps to organize the event and finds that the Open Mic Nights allow for creative expression among the student community.

“Open Mic Night is a chance to come together in community — to share and celebrate individual creative voices and visions, no matter what form those voices take,” Schuckers said. 

One of the first performers of the evening was Leigh Scalf, a sophomore film and media studies major, who shared her creativity through her poetry. Scalf has attended every Open Mic Night this school year, taking advantage of the opportunity to bring her poetry to center stage. 

“I’ve written poetry for about two years now, and it was always something I wanted to perform,” Scalf said. “When I saw that Pitt hosted open mics, I thought ‘Cool, I can finally do something that I’ve wanted to do for a very long time.’”

Scalf performed a series of four poems — the first a reading from one of her favorite poets, followed by three original pieces. In her final poem, Scalf took the creative liberty of removing and dropping her necklace as a visual representation of her work. Scalf says that performing her poems at the Open Mic Nights has been a freeing experience.

“It’s just very cathartic to put poetry out into the world and to have an audience respond to it,” Scalf said.

With the goal of creative expression in mind, the Open Mic Nights provide a space for students who may not get the opportunity to perform otherwise. Schuckers finds that the event allows students to participate in their own passions that may not necessarily align with their majors.

“One goal of our Open Mic Night is to provide an opportunity for people to share their creative work in a venue outside of what they may be used to,” Schuckers said. “We have engineers and pre-med students reading their poems, business students and sociologists playing music.”

One example of this was performer Gianni Davis, a first-year psychology major and rapper. Davis started performing when they were 16 years old, originally creating slam poetry. Within the last two years, they have shifted to hip-hop music and have since performed in several open mic nights as a rapper. Through their experience in musical performances, Davis has found that it is crucial to remember the importance of the arts alongside other fields.

“We’ve forgotten that the most foundational scientists, from Newton to Einstein, were all classically trained in the arts and philosophy,” Davis said. “We once understood that in order to contribute to more mechanical fields in a way that serves humanity, you need to have a basis in [the] humanit[ies].”

Davis’ set consisted of two songs that they wrote themselves. Davis immediately took command of the stage, pacing back and forth in rhythm with the music and rapping with energy. The audience bopped their heads to the beat of the tune. Davis finds that audience engagement is one of the greatest things about performing.

“The most rewarding part of performing is when you get an audience that you can tell is receptive to what you’re saying,” Davis said. “It doesn’t have to be particularly big or small, just full of people who you can tell from their faces are feeling what you’re saying and vibing to it.” 

Beyond Davis, the Open Mic Night saw several other musical acts. The night began with a guitar and vocal performance by Talia Kasner, who performed “Happier Than Ever” by Billie Eilish. The performance continued with other pop covers performed on the keyboard, including “Grenade” by Bruno Mars and “You’re on Your Own, Kid” by Taylor Swift. A musical duo, Lyric and Valerie, also performed an original song, singing and playing acoustic guitar respectively.

The evening concluded with two encore performances, the first featuring a musically-backed poetry reading in which Scalf performed three more poems with an improvised guitar accompaniment. The second featured Lyric and Valerie again, this time enlisting the audience to sing along to the song’s chorus, creating a collaborative moment for all in attendance.
Although this Open Mic Night was the last of the school year, the event will start up again in the fall semester. Schuckers is excited for what the future holds for the Open Mic Nights. He believes that it is important for the University to hold these types of events because it allows for people to be seen through a creative lens and appreciated for their artistic talents outside of their day-to-day lives. 

“It’s important that people can come together as creative artists on an equal footing regardless of whether we’re faculty, staff or students, or what program or school we’re in,” Schuckers said. “We get used to seeing each other in terms of campus roles or majors, but we’re all so much more than that. Opportunities like this let us be recognized in different ways.”