By Tricia Cherry —
Creativa Convergence is an open-mic jam session held frequently at the Downtown Hamilton Center. The most recent iteration began at 7:00 pm, with performances officially beginning at 7:30. This event is an open-mic night that’s meant to showcase a range of artistic talents such as music, poetry, art, comedy, and more.
The entrance was decorated with hay bales and pumpkins, though this could have instead been the doing of the cake shop the Downtown Center shares the building with. A drop screen showed imagery reminiscent of Tim Burton’s style. In the official welcome, organizer Steve Brashear jokingly welcomed attendees to “The Deathly Hallows of Ohio.”
Audience participation was encouraged, perhaps in the spirit of Halloween, and a tote bag of small instruments such as tambourines, bongo drums, and maracas was passed around and handed out to those who wished to play along to songs they knew, or add some ambiance to poems.
Poet and songwriter John Kraimer used his story in one of his poems, saying he had an addictive personality, and his “addiction to phonics” is his current muse. Mr. Kraimer also wanted to extend a sincere thank you to Miami University for supplying the Downtown Center for these events.
This night, musician Rich Lindner brought his rescue dog Arlo to the event. The quiet, friendly dog charmed everyone and lifted their spirits this night, though the event received no performance from him.
Rich and Steve were the two main musicians of the evening, who happened to perform the same day as the national “No Kings Day” protests occurred. There were a collection of songs written in the mid-20th century that, in Steve’s words, “somehow applies now.” One of the songs was “All You Fascists” by Woody Guthrie, a folk singer. The song was written around the 1940s, though the official release date is unavailable.
Another one of Guthrie’s songs, “Deportees” from 1948, was performed and is also an eerily topical song about the dismissal of tragedy when it happens to “deportees.” Before the song began, performer Rich Linder gave a small disclaimer that he might not be able to play perfectly, holding up a bandaged finger damaged by an unfortunate box-cutter incident.
Another politically-motivated performer sat in the back until his turn came—a young man in a shirt that read “No Kings” that appeared to be written with a Sharpie. He recited a poem about empathy and peace before returning to his seat in the back.
This Creativa Convergence also included a social media presence: Twitch streamer Tony Edwards and a Youtuber who asked to remain anonymous. Tony live-streamed the event, saying that it would probably be on Facebook, and his own piece was called “Rain the Fire.” a rap set to a remix of a video game song.
The anonymous Youtuber shared his animation channel called Yelloweyeball and displayed a couple of his animations to the crowd. The first, he said, was for an animation project called “The Food That Came From Space,” and the second piece was an animated music video that was reminiscent of the old, exaggerated Cartoon Network style, or the opening sequence for the movie Grease. When this was commented on, the Youtuber seemed to take it as a complement.
The final performance of the night was by Mr. Brashear, who played the 1960s song “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” by Steam, admitting that it is one of those songs that anyone only knows the chorus to. The song was played on guitar and was one last chance for audience participation.
The event wrapped up just after 9:00 pm, with Mr. Lindner reminding everyone to “make some noise. It’s good for us.”