Rainbow Mic Night: a celebration of the queer community

Clarissa Tadros, a junior psychology major, will celebrate LGBTQIA+ History Month alongside other Chapman performers at the Cross-Cultural Center’s Rainbow Mic Night. DANIEL PEARSON, Staff Photographer

The name of one of the participants of the Oct. 25 event has been changed to “Noah,” as he asked to remain anonymous to protect himself from retaliation based on his sexual identity.

In the summer of 2018, Clarissa Tadros took a deep breath before stepping on stage to recite an Olivia Gatwood’s poem, “When I Say That We Are All Teen Girls,” in front of an audience of high schoolers at a pre-college summer program in Massachusetts. As soon as Tadros had finished, the crowd went wild. This marked Tadros’ first time performing spoken word, but would certainly not be the junior psychology major’s last. 

“Once I finished the poem, it was like, ‘Wow,’” Tadros said. “Everyone was cheering so loud … I just felt super happy. I’m glad that I did it and proud of myself for doing that.”

Tadros, along with other Chapman students, will share their talents at Rainbow Mic Night, an event hosted by Chapman’s Cross-Cultural Center (CCC) in celebration of LGBTQIA+ History Month. Staff, faculty and students are invited to attend today at the CCC lounge in Argyros Forum room 304 as performers who identify as part of the LGBTQIA+ community share their talents at this open mic event. 

Marjan Moshiri, a senior sociology major and lead assistant at the CCC, was in charge of organizing the October events. Moshiri is also president of Chapman’s own ChapTones acapella group and decided to host the mic night to provide an outlet for voices from the LGBTQIA+ community.  

“I wanted to be able to incorporate the performers that are a part of the LGBTQIA+ community,” Moshiri said. “I thought an open mic night would be the best way to do it, because people could come dance, sing, read spoken word (or do) anything they want to do for the event.”

Noah, a junior music education major and long-time cartoon lover — from animated Disney movies to Cartoon Network’s “Steven Universe,” is excited to share his musical talents with the Chapman community. Noah said he’d been performing since he was three, but never singing any of his original music. But for Rainbow Mic Night, that is going to change; Noah will be performing an original piece called “Cartoons in the Stars.” 

“I grew up loving animation, and I know for the rest of my life I’ll love animation,” Noah said. “With that, I wanted to create a love child of a song … about not just my love for cartoons, but it’s also just, I guess, hoping to find someone that kind of makes everything fall into place. It’s kind of a hopeless romantic song.” 

Had it not been for the solitude of quarantine, Noah told The Panther he would not have tried his hand at songwriting. 

“I just started writing a lot of my own stuff, which is awesome; I started writing during quarantine and actually released an EP in November,” Noah said. “It’s complicated, but I can say that, without quarantine, I probably would never have tried songwriting and never learned to like it as much as I do now.” 

Evan Wu, a junior vocal performance major, said his journey into music started when he had “an early midlife crisis.” 

“I was temporarily diagnosed with a terminal illness, but they were wrong,” Wu explained. “I was just like, ‘Oh, I’m actually going to live, woah. What am I going to do with my life, and what have I done with my life?’ I’ve always avoided doing anything with music, and I knew I felt regret over that, because I was always too scared or too embarrassed (due to) a lot of toxic masculinity and internalized homophobia.”

Wu credits the temporary diagnosis as being a “blessing in disguise,” in that it revitalized his perspective on pursuing a musical career. Now, he spends his free time  studying, auditioning, rehearsing — and most of all — singing. Wu’s first time performing at an open mic night was at the Foxtail Kitchen and Bar in Santa Barbara, where he had a blast singing and playing the guitar to Rex Orange County, John Mayer and Ed Sheeran songs. 

“I was super stoked, because (my first open mic night) went really well, and I had an amazing time,” Wu said. “I was like, ‘Wow, I want to do this all the time!’ Then, everything shut down and I was like, ‘Shit.’ So, (performing at Rainbow Mic Night) just seemed like fun. I also like the opportunity of meeting more queer people; it’s an identity I identify with, and it’s nice to have community.” 

Tadros was tasked with writing a poem in their advanced poetry workshop class about love without writing the word “love” in the poem. It was a fruitful challenge that produced Tadros’ poem of choice, called “When They Say to Write,” for Rainbow Mic Night. In writing the poem, Tadros had a specific type of love in mind, but they enjoy hearing other interpretations of their work. 

“(If) another (person) saw or understood something different (in my work) because of their own experiences or their own identity. I think that’s really cool, because then it’s not just a poem — it’s everyone’s poem,” Tadros said. “Everybody can interpret it differently, and that’s so beautiful.” 

This is Tadros’ second time in attendance at Rainbow Mic Night, but their first time as a performer. Tadros said they are thankful the CCC is allowing a place for people of the LGBTQIA+ community to share their voices and original work. 

“I think (Rainbow Mic Night) is such an important space to have on campus — just centering LGBTQIA+ voices and celebrating these voices, the work and the art that we create and sharing that with other people,” Tadros said. “I’m super happy that people on campus are making space for that and supporting it by going to it and performing in it. The people that put it together — it’s really important that they’re doing that. I’m just super happy that this is an event that’s happening.”