- Just Bust! is an open mic series
that First Wave has been running
for about ten, eleven years.
It's the longest-running open mic series
in the Madison community
and it is an event that happens
every first Friday of the month
throughout the academic year.
- You sign up and you get on the mic
and you do what you do.
- Just Bust! came out of
the Marc Bamuthi Joseph residency.
But it's an open mic for the campus community
and the local community.
Really, really accessed strongly by the local community.
And it took on the name Just Bust!
which was at the end of Bamuthi's residency
he created these T-shirts that said " Just Bust!"
as a way to motivate and encourage his students
in the class to just go on stage and bust.
Just perform-- that's what it means.
Just do your best.
- It's absolutely free.
It usually takes place in the "On, Wisconsin!" in the Red Gym.
- And is a space for you know First Wavers
but also the Madison community
to come out and have a time
to engage and share art
and share poetry and share songs and share dance.
- And then, each month at the Just Bust!
we have a twenty to thirty minute featured artist.
And these are artists that the year prior are kind of chosen
or names are thrown out by students that are in the program
and we pick those featured artists.
Each one comes, flies in each month,
and does a feature set for our poets and our audience.
So it's really great.
- And more recently, we've really connected
with academic departments on campus to get more students,
UW-Madison students, to come attend.
We've had teachers from the Madison community come in
and do poems about the education system
and how they feel about being a teacher
and how it's impacting their students.
- It's always a loving, open audience
and it's packed.
It really gets great attendance.
- We've had people who drove from Milwaukee to come
because they've enjoyed the space so much.
They were somehow at one event
and would continue to drive from other places
on that first Friday of the month.
It's really a space where you can come out
and share.
And receive so much love and encouragement
in the fact that you have taken a step to
use your voice, your body, your gifts
as a way to set yourself free
and as a way to really set other people free
who are in the audience
who may be feeling the exact same way.