Lowell Lecture Hall shook with the vibrations of two subwoofers and flashed under colored lights as a packed audience of more than 350 people swayed in their chairs at Apollo Night, a student variety show hosted by the Black Students Association (BSA) Friday evening.

The performance featured 17 acts varying from a Mendelssohn violin concerto to a 1980s-style dance routine performed by Younique, Exceptionally Attractive Harvard Hotties—a dance troupe of seniors known for short as Y.E.A.H.H. Boyyyyyy!

In the tradition of Amateur Night at Harlem’s renowned Apollo Theatre, audience members could end performances that they did not enjoy.

They booed two acts from the stage on Friday. A “sandman” swept the rejected performers into the wings with a large mop.

“The audience rules!” said Johanna N. Paretzsky ’03, who co-emceed the event with Caleb I. Franklin ’04.

The hosts named as the evening’s winners those who garnered the loudest and longest cheering during an audience “clap-off vote.”

Spoken-word artist Okechukwu W. Iweala ’06 and singer Callie P.S. Watkins ’05 tied for the honor.

Iweala, who performed the fleeting rhymes and ever-changing rhythms of his spoken-word poem, “The Rail,” to intermittent audience cheers, said he was delighted to be one of the evening’s winners.

“I just wanted to get my words out there to try to express the feelings that I had,” he said after the show.

Watkins performed Etta James’ 1960 hit “At Last” to a pre-recorded accompaniment. The boisterous audience fell completely silent during many of the song’s lyrical passages and often applauded her stylized cadences.

“That’s classic, baby. That’s classic!” cried a voice from the balcony during her performance.

A bouquet fell at her feet when she finished singing.

Watkins said James’ rendition of the song by Harry Warren and Mack Gordon “was just a song that I really loved.”

The BSA established Apollo Night in 1995, but the event soon became an annual memorial for DeShaun R. Hill and Harvard C. Nabrit Stephens, two black students from the Class of 1999 who died in a 1997 car accident.

The BSA will donate all the proceeds from Friday’s performance to charity, said BSA President Charles M. Moore ’04.