Columbia students examine theme of 'returns' at Postcrypt Coffeehouse Storytelling Night

Upper West Side NY

03 March, 2022

4:07 PM

Description

Columbia Daily Spectator BY AVA ROBERTS MARCH 3, 2022 Soft red hues illuminate stone walls where a twinkly string of Christmas lights line the stage. The basement of St. Paul's Chapel is packed as much as COVID-19 restrictions allow, as the organizers of Storytelling Night hustle eager audience members in and out of the compact room. Microphones, instruments, and a cluster of storytellers line the walls of Postcrypt Coffeehouse. On Saturday, Feb. 19, Postcrypt Coffeehouse hosted a storytelling night, where students of all disciplines gathered to share stories. The event drew a substantial crowd, leading the organizers to admit a limited number of students who RSVPed in advance and split the event into two different shifts. The event's organizers Elena Messinger, CC '22, Sofia Rivera, CC '24, and Eden Segbefia, BC '23, maintained a welcoming atmosphere to ensure performers felt comfortable sharing heartfelt and candid experiences with their audience. "I think a cool part about storytelling and live storytelling is that we can return to some moments in our past and try to work through them [with] stories," Riviera said onstage before sharing her own piece. The theme of the evening was "returns," a term that meant something different to every performer. Despite this shared theme, the variety of different genres and subject matter exhibited the vast spectrum of ways humans can tell stories. The evening began with words from Sophie Anderson, BC '25, and Luke Gardiner, CC '25, who shared converging stories about their experiences being queer, especially in relation to faith, family, and loss. With each anecdote, the pair tied the idea of returning to friends or family to tales filled with equal parts humor and reflection. Often, their identities as members of the queer commuinity and lack of religious faith contributed to creating the places and people that were the most significant to "return" to. The event continued with stories about returning to people. Rivera described her experiences with different host families during her time abroad in Romania and how, in the end, she spontaneously returned to the one she connected with the most. Messinger, meanwhile, shared a story about how her mother's stroke taught her the importance of nonverbal communication. There was even a poem that presented a comedic ode to the attractiveness of forearms from Melissa Wang, BC '24. The first hour culminated with a stand-up comedy routine from Jingyao "Bruce" Mi, CC '24, who waltzed in the venue right as his set was announced. Though supposedly unintentional, Mi's entry set up a character for his impending comedy routine, as his confident stride stood in stark contrast to his harried demeanor. His routine based around his original song, "Tall White Man," drew uproarious laughter from the crowd as he moved through jokes about his transition to the United States after living in China his whole life. Most of his material stemmed from his Asian roots and the social and physical stereotypes he may or may not fit. Mi acknowledged his particularly flamboyant personality, especially as a stand-up comedian, and how he does not always fit the mold of the stereotypes associated with Asian Americans that he spent much of his set making fun of. "I believe in one thing—that comedy comes from your genuine pain, like something you really feel ashamed talking about. … It's a way for you to heal your pain," Mi said, with regard to his joke about his body type resembling a chopstick. While the audience welcomed Mi's self-deprecation and acceptance of stereotypes, he said he finds it painful that this is the type of joke he feels that he has to make. Mi alluded to this when describing why he picked to go by the name "Bruce" in the United States. He thought of characters like Batman's Bruce Wayne, and his sixth-grade self found the name admirable as it represented a masculine, Caucasian heroic figure. Mi now finds that he ironically does not hold such qualities himself. As Mi has become more comfortable in his own skin, he has become more inclined to make fun of himself for what he used to be insecure about, as the jokes draw attention to that pain in a way that will make people listen. However, what makes audiences listen is not always what makes comedians comfortable. Mi acknowledges that he does not like making jokes about his own cultural background in "Tall White Man." "Otherwise I joke about being an Asian, which personally I think is not funny," he sang. Mi enjoys performing in the environment at Postcrypt, as he finds people are more receptive to how he might not fit the stereotypes expected from an Asian man in a comedy club, a struggle he has faced performing at other locations in the city. Amalia Mayorga, GS '22, presented similar sentiments about generalized attitudes within New York City through her poem, "On Precarity/Climate Change/Duty/Obligation/Resentment/Possibility." Mayorga's poem was a response to Emily Dickinson's "Hope is a Thing with Feathers," which inspired her to compare herself and her peers living in New York City to birds in a jungle. Mayorga's poem discusses how New Yorkers, like said birds, reap the benefits of their environment without giving anything in return. Despite this outlook, the poem still centers around hope and people's capacity for change. "Hope is a word that hasn't been killed yet. … Hope is a thing with feathers, a thing that has possibility and flight. It's generative, it's not constrictive. And I love that," Mayorga said. Her poem detailed both the positive and negative elements of living in the city, from the acts of kindness one randomly witnesses on the subway to what she sees as Columbia students' submission to the capitalist machine. Her poem makes statements about her worldview and how humans contribute to the climate change that can feel removed from everyday life. "As forests go burning, as people stay hungry, and plastic oceans seep into our bloodstreams, hope and the blocking of the pipeline, hope and the humanization of the army, hope and the repreparation of the birds and the land, hope and the redistribution of the weath, hope and the destruction of the state. Hope is a thing with feathers that will not let time pass me by," Mayorga read aloud to the crypt near the tail end of her work. Though she draws attention to the urgency with which society needs to treat climate change, Mayorga acknowledges that life must continue through hope, and in spite of the passage of time. She realizes that her sentiments to prioritize social and global issues can circulate simultaneously with hope itself. "It's placeless, because of how ubiquitous it is," Mayorga said of her work. Mayorga's ideas rang true throughout the evening, as the theme of returns yielded stories that detailed relationships between people over physical places. Gardiner recognized this, especially at the end of his piece where he returned to a chapel he attended as a child with some of his closest friends from nearby his home. "It felt like I was returning. Not returning to my Christian faith, but to my faith in people. And it struck me: Lean into them. Simple. Holy," Gardiner said. Staff writer Ava Roberts can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow Spectator on Twitter @ColumbiaSpec. 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