If you made the journey down the Hill last Friday night, you may have heard singing, poetry and percussion flooding 3rd St. The sounds came from Scrap Night, an event created by Creative and Performing Arts (CaPA) scholar Harvest Gil ‘25. The event brought together musical and spoken-word acts in a celebration of Lafayette artists.
“Scrap Night was an event where I wanted to introduce students on campus to different forms of art,” Harvest said. “It was a well-rounded event where I wanted to just show the world who these kids were and [that] there’s talent they just don’t see.”
The goal of Scrap Night was to bring awareness to the various types of art created on campus.
“One of my main goals was to not just find people who sang or played an instrument, because I know that’s super popular … I wanted to do [something] a little more diverse,” Harvest said.
The event featured an array of different forms of art including vocal performances, poetry readings, rap, a drumming performance, a performance from the Mar-Keys and performances from student bands Pizza Delivery and Sunset Script.
While Gil had a clear vision of what the event would look like, she had trouble coming up with a name that felt right.
“I was like, I don’t want to call it an open mic night, I don’t really want to call it a variety show. I want to call it something cool, that when people say it they say, ‘Oh, what is that?’ I was thinking of really thick words that punctuate,” Harvest said of the sound and meaning of the name “Scrap Night.”
Harvest felt that “scrap” was representative of the way society views the arts.
“In the world, the arts are usually underappreciated. ‘The arts are like scraps and the arts are trash’ — they’re sometimes seen as that,” she said. “You get so many kids going to an athletic event, but when it comes to the arts, it’s mostly kids in the arts or kids going for a class.”
The event, which was powered by solar energy, required an outdoor location.
“I wanted it to be super casual, people can come and go as they please,” Harvest said. “William Arts Center Visual Arts Building is right downtown, a really beautiful space [and] we were right on the water.”
While the event was sponsored by the CaPA program, the program’s administration acted largely as bystanders in the planning of Scrap Night. The highly selective program encourages scholars to generate ways in which their creative pursuits can positively impact campus.
“Facilitating that kind of an event, I think, reminds us that we are living in a cultural community, right? I mean, there’s so many things that people can do on a Friday night. How often are those things getting together to enjoy live entertainment being performed by our peers?” art professor and CaPA Program Director Nestor Gil said.
Events such as Scrap Night give students the opportunity to recognize and appreciate the artistic endeavors of their peers.
“I don’t mean to be overdramatic about it, but it’s hard to imagine what else would be more worthy of our time and attention than to witness and celebrate the results of the creative labor of those people around whom we live our lives,” Professor Gil said.
