An Open Mic Evening filled with music, poetry and comedy was held on 15 March at the auditorium of Goethe-Institut Bangladesh in the capital’s Dhanmondi area.

The evening’s proceedings started as Goethe-Institut Bangladesh director Philip Kueppers, in a brief speech, welcomed the audience and invited Professor Kaiser Haq to start off the event with the recitation of one of his selected poems and also to moderate the evening’s proceedings.

Reciting one of his select poems in English language, soon Haq called the enthusiastic persons on stage one after another and so the evening was teeming with diverse performances.  

The event was very well attended from both sides: not only a great audience showed up to enjoy the performances, but also many enthusiastic and inspired people came to participate and illustrated their skills in three different languages, Bangla, English and German.

One of the first participants was comedian and magician Max Mystel. From the streets of London, he came to perform at the Goethe-Institut Bangladesh. With witty humour and formidable magic tricks, he made the audience laugh until their bellies hurt.  

Four aspiring young musicians from the Classical Music Academy, Md Akash (Flute), Suchorit Shuvanon Rahman (Violin), Erfanul Haque (Guitar) and Abidur Rahman (Guitar) performed classical compositions by J. Pachelbel ‘Canon in D’ and F. Schubert ‘Ave Maria’ as well as the music piece ‘Yesterday’ by The Beatles.

Bickrom Saha recited several poems from his unpublished third book ‘Kosto Kosto Shukh III’, which is expected to be published at the next book fair. Furthermore, Sam, Quazi Fahmee Naz, Theo Gomez and Samia Ahmed recited poems both in Bangla and English, and Mahibul Khan even recited a German poem by Heinrich Heine.

Comedians Shammi Huda and Parash also took the stage and made the audience roar with laughter. At the end of the evening, famous Bangladeshi stand-up comedian and also founder of Naveed’s Comedy Club, Naveed Mahbub entertained the audience with current political issues and original humour.  

Several other poets, musicians and comedians exhibited their skills with great intensity and spirit.

The open mic event was organised by Goethe-Institut with an aim to provide a stage for all performers including poets and writers, comedians, musicians, singers, songwriters and theatre artists, whoever wanted to be heard.