There was plenty of good music, poetry, and dance at last Friday’s Night of Free Expression, with eleven different acts in all. The annual event was hosted by Rensselaer’s Black Students Alliance.
It began with an interpretive dance to a song about self-independence, with the three dancers’ bodies moving fluidly to the music. I haven’t seen much interpretive dance, but it must have taken a lot of practicing to get all of that on to the stage in unison. It was an enjoyable performance.
In between the larger musical acts, several students took turns reciting poetry. Some of them were good, while others were lacking, but most were humorous. The first poet wrote about an attractive girl he saw, which elicited many laughs from the audience. The last student poet to go up had a song, too, sung with only his hands keeping the beat.
A girl then played a classical romantic piano piece, which was executed skillfully. It was light from start to finish, the dead opposite of the next act, a guy dancing along to hip-hop music.
Up next was Flowmentalz, a poet from New Jersey. He is known for reciting funny poetry, so he started off with a poem from the point of view of a young child who is not being breast-fed—the rest should be left to the imagination. Then he stated that, as a poet, he knows love. So he began to recite a love poem with touching lyrics, but that ended in angry yelling because he gave her the keys to his apartment and she made a mess. At this point he gave some bowel-related advice (also to be left to the imagination) to the students and left until his next act later in the show.
Next was a very nimble ballet dancer, also pretty good, artistic and classical. Then a pianist, bass guitarist, and singer performed “Bed” by J. Holiday. Then the band played a medley of popular songs, to much approval from the audience.
Then Flowmentalz came back on stage. He remarked that he is stigmatized as a writer of humorous poetry, and insisted that he can write something serious. He recited “They Call Me Drama,” which was a great poem about the finer points of life. He also read a poem about weapons of mass destruction and where you’d find them, as applied to everything American, with “Sweatshop Shoes.” He ended by justifying why he looks older than he is: “That’s from a lack of sleep, life kicking me in the ass, but I drink milk.”
All in all, it was indeed a night of free expression.
