BSA's Apollo Night Packs Lowell Hall

Lowell Lecture Hall shook with the vibrations of two subwoofers and flashed under colored lights as a packed audience of more than 350 people swayed in their chairs at Apollo Night, a student variety show hosted by the Black Students Association (BSA) Friday evening.

The performance featured 17 acts varying from a Mendelssohn violin concerto to a 1980s-style dance routine performed by Younique, Exceptionally Attractive Harvard Hotties—a dance troupe of seniors known for short as Y.E.A.H.H. Boyyyyyy!

In the tradition of Amateur Night at Harlem’s renowned Apollo Theatre, audience members could end performances that they did not enjoy.

They booed two acts from the stage on Friday. A “sandman” swept the rejected performers into the wings with a large mop.

“The audience rules!” said Johanna N. Paretzsky ’03, who co-emceed the event with Caleb I. Franklin ’04.

The hosts named as the evening’s winners those who garnered the loudest and longest cheering during an audience “clap-off vote.”

Spoken-word artist Okechukwu W. Iweala ’06 and singer Callie P.S. Watkins ’05 tied for the honor.

Iweala, who performed the fleeting rhymes and ever-changing rhythms of his spoken-word poem, “The Rail,” to intermittent audience cheers, said he was delighted to be one of the evening’s winners.

“I just wanted to get my words out there to try to express the feelings that I had,” he said after the show.

Watkins performed Etta James’ 1960 hit “At Last” to a pre-recorded accompaniment. The boisterous audience fell completely silent during many of the song’s lyrical passages and often applauded her stylized cadences.

“That’s classic, baby. That’s classic!” cried a voice from the balcony during her performance.

A bouquet fell at her feet when she finished singing.

Watkins said James’ rendition of the song by Harry Warren and Mack Gordon “was just a song that I really loved.”

The BSA established Apollo Night in 1995, but the event soon became an annual memorial for DeShaun R. Hill and Harvard C. Nabrit Stephens, two black students from the Class of 1999 who died in a 1997 car accident.

The BSA will donate all the proceeds from Friday’s performance to charity, said BSA President Charles M. Moore ’04.

“A lot people from the community came out and it was for a good cause,” he said after the show.

Besides the two winners, many other acts elicited tremendous waves of applause and cheering from the audience.

British pop star Tom P. Lowe ’05 performed Elton John’s “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” while wearing black-and-white floral-patterned pants.

“He’s kind of popular overseas,” joked Paretzky in her introduction of Lowe, whose boy band hit #7 on the U.K. charts with “Man Not a Boy.”

Members of the audience joined in the chorus of Erykah Badu’s song “Tyrone,” which Marissa A. Mike ’06 performed to a recorded accompaniment.

“Ca-all Tyrone,” they sang in unison. “Call him!”

Expressions Dance Company presented a routine performed to a medley of music from different eras, and the first-year dance troupe S.L.A.M. performed dressed with “Miss Sexy” printed on the backs of their pants.

The audience did not sustain its enthusiasm through each of the acts, though.

A performance by the “SoSo Sistas” was jeered from the stage after about 10 seconds of singing. Ehimare I. Akhabue ’03 left the stage after a confused combination of cheering and booing for his performance of Usher’s “U Don’t Have to Call.”

The evening’s hosts conducted “interviews” with members of the audience during the event. Paretzky asked a visiting parent in the audience whether her son would be performing.

“No, he has no talent,” she said. “That’s why he’s at Harvard––so he can get a day job.”

Following the event, the Black Man’s Forum hosted a party, open to all audience members, at Pforzheimer House.