Last month Red Room held its 75^th consecutive Stage Time & Wine, the core event that launched the organization six years ago.  The Red Room had made a practice of welcoming people, no matter their rank. Over the months as a Red Roomer, I’ve watched first time attendees return and become regulars.  The Red Room has, undoubtedly, sustained a social enterprise and built a community through this practice.

Cathy Hsu came to Red Room for the first time last year and has returned several times to sing and listen. Listeners welcomed her each time. Irene first visited the Red Room some months ago with a keyboard. She had just begun teaching herself to play and she told the audience she hoped they could accept her mistakes. She, of course, received the full attention and warm applause every performer when she finished. This month she returned to share her progress. She’d grown so much in the last few months and she revealed that she’d found “true happiness” in the piano, and the community, after a break up.

Vanessa, another returnee, shared a deeply personal poem about overcoming insecurity and internalized misogyny. “You are a human being, you are not born to please,” she read, in the crowd several audience members nodded. Other familiar faces stood and shared. Alex Schmoyer read more poetry, as did Emily Loftis who shared a poem on South Korea. Alton Thompson, a fixture of Red room Radio Redux stood to read pieces he had chosen. Vicky Chen sang a new song and Rose Goossen, fondly known as the Red Room Angel for the music she shares, stood up to praise her. When one pair of performers forgot the words to the song, we invited them back on and clapped with them.

As I watched the performances, I observed audience’s reaction, as I always do. Some sat still, focusing intensely while others clapped softly to themselves; some sang along with songs they knew while others bounced silently with friends. In the front corner, near the velvety red and gold chairs, a group of girls sat talking amongst themselves. They had only met each other that night, but they had become fast friends. The evening progressed through a healthy mix of regular Red roomers and new performers. One, in particular, shared that she felt worried when she’d first walked in, alone and signed her name on the performance list. “I was alone,” she told me after the event. “but people were so kind. They came to speak to me [and] I felt that I knew everyone there. I fell in love with Red Room.”

It is this kindness and welcoming spirit that transforms what begins as a small room filled with strangers to one with friends. At the very beginning of the night, as attendees settled onto the red carpets, Manav Mehta, the MC, introduced an important, oft unnoticed element of Red Room: the volunteers. Not only do they attend and participate in Red Room events, but they ensure the Red Room succeeds. They have sustained the community from its inception and we are grateful for their hard work dedication. Like any of the new performers at the 75^th Stage Time & Wine, or even the ones who’ve been on the stage before, our volunteers started with a bottle of wine and a room full of strangers who decided to support one another. It’s this support and willingness for camaraderie that has made Red Room an enduring and thriving community in Taipei.

 Leah List is a recent graduate of the University of Michigan’s Political Science and International Studies program. She is an aspiring writer, researcher, human rights advocate and a believer in the importance of storytelling. She currently resides in Tianmu. In her free time, she can be found at the Red Room where she volunteers.

Red Roomers trickled in early for the 74th consecutive Stage Time & Wine and settled around the food table. The usual ease that accompanies Red Roomers to most events quickly settled over the crowd as they intermingled.

Some were well rehearsed, others were off the cuff. One group had spent weeks before Stage Time & Wine practicing their cues, harmonies and musical arrangement. While this group performed renditions of others’ work, many Red Roomers took to the stage to present their original pieces. Anthony, a returning performer, explained why he returned to Red Room to present a new composition. “People really listen here,” he said while tuning up his guitar.

Anthony jamming with other Red Roomers after Stage Time & Wine

Outside, people thronged the streets celebrating Taiwan’s recent election; inside, a very different political expression took place.  Early in the night a young woman with ribbons wound around her wrists, stood silently in front of the crowd for several minutes. Over her mouth she had placed a Taiwanese flag. A hush fell over the room as the audience watched her stare ahead. It was the kind of silence that surrounds you and stretches time. When she removed her flag she revealed she had protested in reaction to Chou Tzu-yu’s forced, humiliating apology and denial of her heritage.

Her protest was not the only element of salient societal and political issues, Adam McMillan, the director of The Community Services Center (The Center) in Taipei also spoke. In sharing the tragic story that lead to The Center’s founding, McMillan revealed the importance of providing accessible mental health services for any person in Taiwan who needs it.

As per usual, the night was filled with a great variety of performances ranging from personal to political, and sometimes encompassing both. On stage, people shared, sometimes for the first time, their prose, poetry and harmony.  Yet, thanks to that ever-present ease, it didn’t matter how many times any person had shared. It didn’t matter which topic they chose to cover or which medium they chose for their performance. We listened all the same. Perhaps Rose Goossen said it best when she prefaced her performance: It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve performed, “there’s not a stage that quite affects [you] as this one does.”

Leah List
Scribe, Red Room

When we tell stories, we are doing more than entertaining or orating; we are sharing part of our identity. Many of us approach the stage sheepishly, as if we might get kicked off. Some of us make nervous requests, fiddling with our guitar. Some, like Alex Gilliam and Emily Loftis, request politely for attention, shuffling through printed poems or scrolling through our phones. Meanwhile others, like Paul Power and his violin, or Peter Biggs and his impressions, relish showmanship and almost demand attention. A small sum of us seem to shrug off the audience and ascend into our own world, like Vivian twirling her scarf as she danced, or Vicky, eyes closed, listening to the smooth crackle of her voice. Every Stage Time & Wine, performers are revealing a part of themselves and entreating the audience to listen, if not to accept.

Often, the audience’s most important job is simply to listen. Red Room’s Stage Time & Wine LXXIV began with a listening exercise. The main precept of this exercise requires silence from the participants. Though participants start the exercise with skepticism, they often discover a number of sounds beyond voices they’d previously ignored. The exercise reminded Red Roomers of the multitude of ways we can listen to even the smallest things.

Throughout the night, as the audience watched the performers, I watched the audience. Some had laid down, stretching out lazily, eyes closed while Alex read her poem. During another performance, some were bobbing and raising their hands and grinning as another Red Roomer free-styled. Some of us fidgeted or hunched over ourselves. Later, I would watch the listeners tip-toe up to the performers to convey a compliment or inquire about the meaning of a line.

As I continued to watch I was reminded of a comment a professor had once relayed to a class. She said she had watched a teacher in a classroom grow increasingly frustrated with students who refused to make eye contact while she spoke, or who doodled during her lecture. To her, these behaviors evinced a lack of interest. Many students had been taught, after all, that listening meant eye contact and straight backs. Yet, this is not the reality. In reality, people listen in many ways.

Sometimes a head is not bowed in disinterest, but in intense focus, as if removing the sense of sight would sharpen the notes and words heard. The writings collected at the end of the night were proof of this, some people had written compliment like “Magical Mister E gave a magical performance”, others their favorite quotes—a line from a Daniel Black poem or Kyle.

As the evening drew to a close, Julie Chiu entranced us with the ‘moon’ gong, bringing the room to a contemplative quietness. The gong master whirled around us, drawing deep rings from the instrument and keeping rhythm. Someone shouted from the back. “Can we have a group OM before we go?” he asked the audience over the sounds of rustling papers and bags. Tentatively, Red Roomers rose and interlocked hands. The rustling reduced itself to a exiguous whisper before being extinguished by the echoing sounds of chanting. We listened deeply to our own voices layered into the voices of others.

Leah List
Editor, Red Room