Some students find it hard to fit all of their belongings in a dorm room. One IU student fits a stage in hers.
Natalia Almanza, one of the four executive producers of Tiny Dorm Concerts, sees her room in Briscoe Quadrangle become a music set about once a week. The Tiny Dorm team sets up lights, cameras, and microphones around her room in a setup process that takes a little more than half an hour.
“I haven’t wrapped my head around the fact that if you Google ‘Tiny Dorm’, photos of my dorm come up. It’s immortalized forever now, which is exciting,” Almanza said.
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Some of the local performers and bands featured by Tiny Dorm Concerts include Hunkleberry Funk, Andromedaughter, and Grace Minnick.
Minnick, an IU student from Fort Wayne, showcased her folk-pop music on Tiny Dorm Concerts just this month. As an up-and-coming singer-songwriter, she was able to use the show to help broaden her music‘s exposure.
“Everybody was so supportive,” said Minnick. “Everyone was just so invested in the project and optimistic, and just really into what was going on.”
Before Minnick’s performance, three camera operators took their places, a sound engineer ran a soundcheck on his laptop in the corner, the four producers made sure everyone and everything was in its place, and about five others sat outside the room in the hallway. It’s a tightly-run ship and there’s not much time–or room–for things to go wrong.
Performer Grace Minnick talks about her musical background and her experience with Tiny Dorm.
Before Minnick’s performance, three camera operators took their places, a sound engineer ran a soundcheck on his laptop in the corner, the four producers made sure everyone and everything was in its place, and about five others sat outside the room in the hallway. It’s a tightly-run ship and there’s not much time–or room–for things to go wrong.
Local band Andromedaughter performs in Almanza’s room.
“Eric [Ashby] handles all of our booking here”, said Almanza. “We have an artist application form, and there’s about 40 artists on that list currently.”
The series, which is based off of NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts, was conceived by Almanza and Ashby, both arts management students, over the summer of 2018. They held a callout meeting for crew members, which attracted more that 40 students. Alongside two other executives, Linnea Holt and Matt Lyko, the pair officially launched Tiny Dorm Concerts in October.
As of now, there are eight published videos on Tiny Dorm Concerts’ YouTube page. Almanza says they hope to eventually expand to put on shows in other locations campus.
For now, the group will continue filming Tiny Dorm shows until the end of the semester. And they’ll do it all in less than 150 square feet.
