Open Mic gives a voice to local artistes

RANCHI: Open Mic events have helped Ranchi's young artistes to showcase their talents before an audience and get real time reviews.
Ajay Raj, a Class XII student participated in several open mic events in other cities, including Kolkata and Delhi, before he decided to start a comedy open mic series in the city. "As a comedian, it is important for me to perform before a crowd to get feedback. I am a part of Ranchi Komedians, which has five core members and we organise open mic events at least twice a month in the city. Though we prefer stand-up comedy performances, we also allow poets and singers a chance to have an audience," Raj said.

For Mohit Verma, a student from Dhanbad, organizing open mic events started with a quest to find a place to perform his poetry. Mohit co-ordinates with Your Quote, a writing application, which holds an open mic event in Ranchi every Tuesday. "The experience in these events is always new and motivating. Watching fellow performers come forward and showcase their pieces of work like a poem, ghazal or a song helps us connect. I have already conducted eight open mic programmes in Jamshedpur and I travelled to Ranchi to coordinate this event," said Verma.

But crowd control and filtering of content remains a challenge, said Raj. "The crowd is difficult to control at times as people might get offended by the views shared. We generally ask our performers enrolled for the day to refrain from using profanity or vulgarity in the performance. Since the set-up is very informal, there is scope for variety in the performances," he added.

Despite the challenges, it is the participants and performers who benefit at the end of the day, reaching out to an audience which was an impossible thing earlier.

Vaishali Singh, a student of St Xavier's College Ranchi who participated in one such events, said, "I never had any idea that there are so many talented young individuals around me here in Ranchi . Even though I participated and performed poetry piece written by me, the experience as an audience trumped it. I never thought I could find an audience that will be so supportive."