Nomadic Voices is a club created by founder and creative director Tabo Bo. He is a senior at Utica College who had a vision for expressing creativity on and off campus. 

The idea for Nomadic Voices came into fruition during the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Quarantining served as a time for Bo to start writing poetry and express himself in different creative ways, such as dancing and painting. 

He sought out places where he could share his creativity and realized there was a lack of creative outlets for college-aged students.

“What was my solution?” Bo said. “Well, I created one, and this is where the idea of Nomadic Voices started.”

During the summer, Bo wrote poetry to pass time and show a different form of creativity, but in order to share his poems with others, he started hosting open mic nights every week. Members would go to a different park in Utica and participate in the open mic nights. Eventually, once the semester started, the Nomadic Voices club was created at Utica College to involve other students and the community in expressing their own creativity.

Bo started the club for creatives who want a safe environment to express their art. They host open mic nights, karaoke nights, painting sessions, poetry sessions and other creative outlets. Members ultimately believe that creativity is what brings people together and they want to bring as many people in as possible. Although people are different in their own ways, Nomadic Voices is the place where people are accepting of each other despite these differences. 

“One of our goals for this year is to keep growing our club so that the rest of campus can learn about us,” Bo said. “We want to recruit more creative members who are willing to be open and listen to others.” 

In the past, Bo worried about the turnout and participation numbers of performers, but it always worked itself out as more and more people became vulnerable to share their own creativity with the group. 

“To me, that is one of the best feelings in the world,” Bo said. “To be able to provide a platform for those who did not want to talk at first, but then for some reason did so. Now I may not know the specific reason as to why each performer did so, but I do appreciate the fact that they did.”

Meghan Jordan, the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion project and program manager at Utica College, helped Bo’s vision come to fruition at Cultural Showcase last month. 

 “I love Tabo’s passion for the arts and his desire to bring the college community into the larger community,” Jordan said. “I love seeing the talented performers who are members of our own college and city.”

Tabo is also an active student member of the DEI Collaborative, a committee of students, faculty and staff consisting of action groups that seek to create an inclusive environment at Utica College. He received a grant from the DEI student grant program in order to host and plan a performance showcase to provide students and the community to experience the artistic heritage Utica offers. The Cultural Showcase was hosted on Nov. 6 and held at the recently revitalized Kemble Park. 

The club invites Utica College students, faculty, staff and surrounding community members to perform poetry, monologues, choreographed dance or music. Nomadic Voices encourages students, especially, to go out into the city and experience Utica’s vibrant arts scene.

Interested students can follow Nomadic Voices on Facebook, Instagram and PioHub. Bo will be posting more updates, content and videos soon.