Musicians, poets and actors expressed their creativity through song and poetry at the Artist Open Mic Night Tuesday night.
ASU students and faculty gathered in the Student Union ballroom at ASU’s Polytechnic campus to perform and listen to both original and published works significant to them.
Artist Open Mic Night was hosted by the Campus Environment Team, an organization at ASU that promotes free speech and diversity.
Topics of the performances ranged from love to homelessness, with a theme of free speech and withholding judgment.
Business management junior Dominick Hernandez, director of the event, said it was important to showcase Poly’s diversity.
“This event provided an open environment for anyone, especially first-time performers, to come out and feed off each other’s creativity,” Hernandez said.
Having events like the open mic nights allows students to open up and accept each other for who they are, he said.
“Students come to college and fall into these little cliques and crews like they did in high school,” he said.
Hernandez, 32, is currently in his third year in school studying business, after serving six years in the U.S. Army.
Hernandez said he proposed the idea to have an open mic night to the Campus Environment Team after positive feedback from the student body.
The chair of the Campus Environment Team at the Polytechnic campus, Joel Hutchinson, described the event as a joint effort of the campus team and Hernandez.
“The event really came out of the efforts of our students. Dominick came to the Campus Environment Team with the idea and really made it happen,” Hutchinson said. “One of the parts of our mission is to promote and protect free speech and academic freedom. I wanted to do that through this event for students and faculty on our campus.”
Secondary Education sophomore Brent William performed songs that are part of an upcoming album that he is working on.
“I noticed that there are a lot of artists on this campus and I think they deserve more attention,” William said. “Events like this are nice because it gives musicians who don’t have a band some kind of outlet or venue to perform in.”
William is also the president for the Music Club at the Polytechnic campus, and he hopes to hold events in which artists can perform at least once a month at local coffee shops.
Hernandez said that he plans to hold another Artist Open Mic night in February and hopes to include the community in addition to ASU students and faculty.
Reach the reporter at allison.carlin@asu.edu.
