The mezzanine of Eli's Bookstore became an artsy free for all Sunday afternoon when the DePauw Student Art Council put on their second Open Mic, Open Space event.
Both students and members of the public came out to perform songs, read poetry, dance and even tryout new stand-up comedy acts.
Audience members consisted of both Greencastle residents and DePauw students and ranged from small children to senior citizens.
Junior Lauren Arnold put the whole thing together. Last Sunday, March 9, was the first event, and the event grew tremendously in only one week.
Arnold hopes that there will be an even larger turn out in the next few, which will hit the stage again after spring break.
Many students read original poetry, such as senior Ben Cox, who read two poems. His first, entitled "Words Words Words," spoke of how words were his existence.
His second poem, entitled "Space Cadet," was a dreamy poem of someone flying into space and back down to earth, alluding to those who daydream.
Another poet who read her work was senior Megan Carter. Carter read three poems from a collection she is working on, entitled "Poetry of Place."
"I am writing about Putnam County, trying to find some kind of meaning," Carter said. "A lot of my poetry is about driving around and struggling to find myself here and find how this place relates to me here, both as a DePauw student and as a woman."
Her titles are the places she has visited, such as "North to Bainbridge Passing Brick Chapel" and "1901 Baker's Camp Bridge J.J. Daniels."
Other poets included juniors Juan Rodriguez and Lyn Gay, whose poetry was about experiences in their own lives.
First-year Ines Giramata read one of her own works entitled, "Black Pride," in light of many of the controversial issues that have come up on campus in the past few weeks.
Some people brought guitars and performed songs, such as senior Miriam Alter. She performed an original song entitled "OYG" that is a criticism of religion.
She also did a medley of songs, including "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" and "Wonderwall."
"I realized there were a bunch of songs with the same chords," Alter said.
She ended with a third performance of the song "Changes," which is by a band that existed at her high school.
First-year Onyi Awani sat in front of the mezzanine behind her guitar and sang "The Change is Gonna Come," also because of the recent issues on campus.
"I wanted to show that there was more than one way to deal with issues," Awani said, "and I chose to do it through song."
She belted it out at the top of her lungs and her voice filled the entirety of Starbucks and Eli's.
She also sang the Jackson 5's single, "I Want You Back" a capella, with the claps from the audience as her only source of music.
Al Little, a Putnam County resident, performed the song, "Aragon Mill," an originally American song that the Irish adopted as one of their own.
"I'm here to bring it back," Little said.
The song felt very authentic as the fully-bearded, plaid-wearing Al took the stage.
Little is the first non-student to perform in the event
"We hope it will inspire others to come and perform in the future," Arnold said.
Sophomores Cheyne Funakoshi and Angela Guo sang two songs toward the beginning of the event and then ended the show with two more.
Funakoshi played guitar while Guo sang. One of the songs the duo performed was "Lucky," by Jason Mraz and Colby Caillat, alternating parts and harmonizing with one other.
While many took to the mic to tryout new poems and songs, junior Hunter Dyar took the opportunity to try out one of his stand-up comedy.
His act began with him talking of other comedians like Jerry Seinfeld and Ricky Gervais and their topics of choice for their comedy.
He said that he took Seinfeld's advice and chose to focus on the hilarities that could arise on an airplane.
The rest of the bit focused on advice for the not-so-frequent flyer.
The performance got many laughs from the audience as Dyar's long hair swept off the stage.