National art and entertainment company Small Victories partnered with a group of University student artists to spotlight the creative talents on College Hill.
Last Thursday, Oct. 3, marked the team’s first joint event. The night combined student acts such as the band Orange Guava Passion, rapper Té Kav and dance company Impulse to put on a vibrant multimedia show at The Met, a popular downtown party venue.
“We decided that it was really cool if we use music and art altogether as a force pulling people together, so we came up with the idea of a variety show,” said Vivek Pandit ’20, the student musician and creator of the series. Pandit advertised the event as a “variety show” to refer to his team’s entertainment initiative, which will combine dance, music and other artistic mediums. The team said they felt the first show last Thursday was a big success — selling around 350 tickets.
Pandit and his roommate Devonte Kavanaugh ’20 — also known by his stage alias Té Kav —have been producing music and playing shows together since their sophomore year. Since then, Pandit has befriended fellow artists, photographers and musicians who also enjoy sharing their creativity with others.
“What we’ve done is proving that an artist has a gravitational force that pulls people together,” Pandit said.
Having previously thrown concerts at off-campus locations, Pandit said it can be difficult to promote these events to busy students.
“It’s hard to get people to show up, but once they show up, we had people who said it was the best night of their whole semester or year,” he said.
“We want to be known as a promoter, which provides a platform for aspiring acts seeking a bigger stage,” said Alex Norocea ’14, who founded Small Victories. Norocea came up with the idea for the company in an introductory-level entrepreneurship class.
The headliner for the show was Orange Guava Passion, a jazz-funk band consisting of nine University sophomores. According to guitarist Ben West ’22, Orange Guava Passion is a student band with “undying love for funky jams.” The band connected with Norocea when lead vocalist Jackson Jones ’22 went to an alumni-student networking event over the summer in Los Angeles.
“We were all freshmen, and a couple of us had met at some of the opening jazz events and ended up getting together a smaller group of us jamming,” said Maya Polsky ’22, guitarist and background vocalist of the band.
The band performed the four songs from their latest EP “Enjoy!” at the variety show.
Several members of the band agreed that this event was special to them because they headlined and saw the crowd supporting and enjoying their music.
Pandit and his friends have two more variety shows in the works this semester.
