The Wesleyan Argus

Tag: the replacements

  • Look What We Did: First Semester at Wesleyan

    The first semester on a college campus can easily get overstimulating, and at Wesleyan, doubly so. Forget about classes and homework: trying to choose which concert to go to is enough to make a first year student’s head spin. We asked some of our new writers, almost done with their first semester here, to tell us about their experiences with the diverse and vibrant Wesleyan arts scene, and what events and moments stuck out in particular. We expect they’ll be back for more next semester.

    Collaborating, Spontaneously

    By Sonya Bessalel

    Contributing Writer

    At beginning of orientation, I remember sitting outside of Usdan as new classmates performed. I remember being overwhelmed with the amount of talent and bravery displayed by singer-songwriters, poets, and comedians alike. Every time I go to WestCo’s open mic nights, I am as spellbound as I was that first day. My first semester here has been filled with music, dance, and performances. During the One Day Plays, I worked with three sophomores to memorize and perform an absurdist show written just hours before. For Terpsichore, I donned a painted mask and danced to Björk to illustrate the life and death of sunflowers. And after auditioning for five a cappella groups, I landed in Notably Sharp, which quickly became my on-campus family.

    It’s difficult to keep up with all the talent on campus. Every weekend is another Second Stage show, another foray to Earth House or Eclectic or the WestCo Café to hear student bands and outside groups perform. In a single night, I saw four a cappella groups, the Indian cultural show Samsara, a dance show entitled FX, and student band Chef.

    The beauty of this community comes from the spontaneous collaborations that occur as creative people converge. It surfaced when my friend played a favorite choral song, “Shenandoah,” on Foss Hill, and we improvised harmonies, my soprano complimenting his tenor. I find beauty in the spontaneous jam sessions that spring up in Clark, 200 Church, WestCo, and the Butts. To me, the arts are a refuge from the day-to-day craziness of life. Not only is the arts scene here thriving, but students care enough to see each other perform. When Notably Sharp sight-read a choral piece, my chest filled with the familiar swell that aligning harmonies always brings. And as we made music together, I finally felt like this place could be home.

    Seeing Classmates—and Alumni—Showcased

    By Danielle Cohen

    Staff Writer

    Over the course of this semester, I’ve witnessed an eclectic (no pun intended) mix of events on campus. My top two moments are closely related: first is watching Lin-Manuel Miranda ’02 as he blessed the CFA Hall with brand-new original music, details about his journey since his time at Wesleyan, and enlightened advice. Secondly, Wesleyan’s own production of the musical that Miranda wrote as a sophomore here, “In the Heights,” was just the type of exuberant celebration I needed before a Sunday night of studying and essay-writing. Behind the belted notes and dramatic tension, the “In the Heights’” set struck me the most, a structure that seemed to be completely made out of white plastic containers yet somehow held a strikingly simplistic beauty.

    Another aspect of campus that I am just starting to discover is the Shapiro Creative Writing Center, which frequently welcomes visiting authors or holds writing workshops that are open to all students on campus. After liking their Facebook page, I’ve been able to keep tabs on all the happenings at the Writing Center such as table talks, visiting authors, and poetry slams, as well as attend some of these events.

    Finally, the biweekly Westco Open Mic nights have shown me how talented all the people around me on campus are. Here, I can see a quiet girl in my French class or a guy I’ve bumped into in my hall showcase a talent that I never would have known they had. As cheesy as it sounds, these nights often remind me of what makes Wesleyan great: a group of students welcoming any kind of interest or talent with open arms.

    Mixing With Music Lovers

    By Aaron Stagoff-Belfort

    Staff Writer

    One of the first parties of my freshman year was the much-hyped “Bend It At Beckham.” Amidst an array of cross-dressing students, I was mesmerized by a crew of upperclassmen dancing and DJ-ing on stage. Ron Jacobs ’16 had the club going up on a Friday and as he manned the 1s and 2s effortlessly, and I realized that supplying music at parties through my clunky iPod was so high school. DJing blends music, performance, crowd control, and improvisation in a manner that allows the vocally challenged among us to have some artistic presence. At the club fair, I joined the DJs and Producers Club and have begun to learn to DJ digitally as well as on a turntable. While it’s a process that will probably take a couple months to master, I am enticed by the prospect of one day performing a live set before a show at Psi U or Alpha Delt.

    The club regularly books artists to perform at Wesleyan. While the Gold Link concert sponsored by the club didn’t go exactly as planned (thanks, fire alarms), I am excited by the opportunity to recruit talented but lesser-known acts to perform at Wes. In addition, with the opening of the student-run Red Feather Studios on High Street, our club now has a state-of-the-art space to record and DJ. While I wasn’t present for most of the renovation process, it was thrilling to observe the result of a community of music lovers, many of whom are members of the DJs and Producers Club, working together to create a facility that will allow us to hone our skills and inspire creativity. While I hope to DJ events such as the gender bender in a couple of years, discovering a community of music lovers has been sufficiently rewarding.

  • Look What I Did: Tahrir: Verses of Youth Liberation

    I am a writer. It so happens that I am Egyptian. The combination of these two identities would normally not be problematic if it were not for the fact that I am also a young college student.

    That my ambition, nationality, and age do not normally fit together well is due to the erroneous notion throughout my country and culture that devalues the voice and power of youth. First of all, as an artist, my work and I are looked down upon, for we are perceived as entities of luxury. As a youth, the challenge is even worse because of limited opportunities.

    I found this predicament unacceptable. I was not only a youth who wanted to write, but one who wanted to spur influence and create sociocultural change with my work. I dreamed that I, in any way possible, could help others do the same. This is when I first thought of Tahrir.

    I strive to approach the problems presented before me in an entrepreneurial manner, to produce the most sustainable and effective solution using the limited resources available. Last April, I decided that I would start my own creative writing project. I quickly realized that for it to be truly effective, I could not be alone. So I decided to make it accessible to anyone and that this project would live online. The only question that remained was the name.

    Tahrir: Verses of Youth Liberation was surprisingly not a difficult name to come up with. The power of the word “tahrir” stems from its unique combination of literary, geographic, and historical meaning. Arabic for “liberation,” it is also the name of the square in which the 2011 Egyptian Revolution took place. Thus, on the one hand the word stands for exactly what I seek to achieve with my writing and what I hope to help others do with theirs, while on the other it marks the now immortal location in which the youth of my country made a definitive stand that could not be ignored, one in which the nation had to recognize its voices.

    Tahrir was founded with the primary goal of being a space in which youth from around the world may share their struggles with, triumphs over, or general views on the various forms of oppression they experience. By oppression I mean any injustice experienced from mass institutionalized racism to tradition-based cultural sexism, all the way to societal degradation of alternative careers. I sought to make it a space in which anyone can not only contribute with their experiences of oppression, but also understand through the contributions of others what it’s like for them to experience their societal or cultural oppression.

    Having traveled extensively and lived in three extremely diverse locations throughout my life, I’ve had the honor and privilege of experiencing the stories of diverse youths and sharing my own with them. I learned through this unique position that the more stories I heard, the more my perspective of oppression as a universal but immensely complex sociocultural phenomenon grew. For instance, learning about instances of sexism in Egypt alongside ethnoreligious marginalization in Kosovo, the imposition of language in China, or the intense stigmas regarding mental illness in the U.S. through the firsthand lens young people experience them allowed me to understand that none of us are completely free or detached from oppression. More importantly, it made me realize through their stories of struggle that, in communion, we can as young people tackle oppression together.

    I felt the truth of this when several of my peers contributed and shared with me their experience with the process.

    “Writing for Tahrir gave me the opportunity not only to share my thoughts but also to connect with others passionate about that oft-called upon and indispensable tenet of civilization: liberty,” Alice Markham-Cantor ’18 said.

    “[Tahrir] brings a much needed element of solidarity to an experience that can sometimes feel so alienating,” Zachary Kramer ’17 said.