The Chicago poetry open mike “the Café Gallery” started in December 1996 at the Aloha Café, moved to the Café in 2003, and moved to Gallery Cabaret in 2012. Janet Kuypers (as host of this open mike venue since January 2010) closed the last day of readings in 2011 at the Café with readings, and people talking about the history of this open mike. (Check out http://www/scars.tv/thecafe for more info on the last show, plus past and future performances at this open mike.) Her own readings included readings to music and viddeo from the HA!man of South Africa (Francois Le Roux), readings accompanied with recordings of Christmas carols sung by soprano opera vocalist Suzanne Hettinger, and a poem sung to blues music by guitarist John Yotko.

    Because this was the last performance at the Café for “the Café Gallery” (a name for the poetry open mike paying homage not only to th places that once supported it, but also to the 2012+ location for the open mike), Kuypers made a point to look for the first poems (in her records) she had ever read at this venue — not only at the Aloha Café (from a performance art show she did with Jason Pettus in 1997), but also the first pieces on record she performed at the Café as well (from september 2003).

    These performances right before the Christmas holiday gave her the inspiration to perform Christmas-related writings with music from soprano opera vocalist Suzanne Hettinger. Because the HA!man of South Africa (Francois Le Roux) does annual world tours of his music (with an annual stop in Chicago), and because Francois and Janet also plan to have their own show together in addition to his solo show in Chicago in 2012, Kuypers added the music of the HA!man of South Africa (Francois Le Roux) from his 2011 Chicago performances 10/16/11 to accompany her readings of her Aloha Café and the Café readings. Also, her poem “Made Any Difference” was writen in 2011 with the intention of only being sung to music when performed, so blues musician John Yotko played a different version of this song to this live audience.

     Below are mp3 files and videos from a December 18, 2011 (12/18/11) evening of poetry readings at the Café...

There is also a 3 CD set of performances from J. Kuypers at the Cafe, collected into this release. This 3 CD set of live poerformances are included in Live at the Cafe includes not only recordings from 2003, 2004 and 2005, but it also contains recordings of two performance art shows — A Night of Firsts from 27/22/11, and Stripped from 12/18/05. Bonus tracks in this 3 CD set even include live recordings from Coffee Chicago, Molly Malone s, and even recordings from the Chicago Poetry Fest on both years, 2004 and 2005! You can order a copy of this all original music and poetry at many online locations.

Stay tuned for the final compilaton CD set of poetry from Janet Kuypers read at the Café (2005-2011), tentatively titled “Dobro Vecher”.