Jersey City’s Open Mic-ers Come Together to Produce Tour
By Jon Whiten • Jul 30th, 2010 • Category: Arts, Blog
Jersey City has become a bit of a haven for spoken-word and open-mic events — there’s the longstanding Art House, Just Add Sound and the JC Slam at Grassroots Community Space, Ladies on the Mic at Made with Love and Uptown Crew’s open mic throwdowns, to name a few.
“Performers need somewhere to perform,” says Just Add Sound’s Susan Rescue Justiniano. “Culture is strong in Jersey City and the open-mic scene acknowledges that.”
Tonight, Justiniano and organizers from many of the other open mics will be launching the JC Opens Up the Mic Tour, a five-month series designed to expose potential open mic venues and introduce audiences to the talent performing on a regular basis right in their own backyard, with the added benefit of working towards a cohesive open-mic scene.
“As a performer and supporter of the arts, I felt that there was a disconnect between the spoken-word and open-mic events that were cropping up around Jersey City,” Justiniano says. “Each one had something wonderful to offer to the artists of Jersey City, but no one really knew where or when. Jersey City needed to come together in support of artists of all genres, and JC Opens Up the Mic is a baby step in that direction.”
The process and planning has been very collaborative from the get-go, Justiniano says, noting that Deeja Raines, Justin Woo, Christine Goodman, Jack Halpin, Beth Achenbach, Benjamin Bartosky, Elizabeth Rodriguez and Trish Szymanski have all been essential organizers of the tour.
“No one person can do this,” she notes. “JC Opens Up the Mic is designed for the village, not the individual.”
There is a tour event each month through November; tonight’s event is at the Warehouse at 8 pm. Future dates: August 31 at the Distillery, September 21 at Delenio’s, October 21 hosted by Uptown Crew, and November 21 grand finale hosted at Art House Productions.
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Jon Whiten is the founding editor of the Jersey City Independent; he now works for a public-policy nonprofit in Trenton.
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