Names: Jason Trager and Rosie Vaughn
Hometowns: Great Neck, N.Y., Ripon, Calif.
Year: Tisch freshmen
Dorm: Third Avenue North residence hall
Act: Spoken word poetry

What is your biggest inspiration?
Well we saw these guys do a poem about Legos on YouTube, and my sister writes really amazing slam poems, so we thought it would be cool.

How long have you been performing, and what made you interested in performing in the first place?
We’ve both been performing basically forever. I honestly can’t tell you why I started “performing” because it happened in Elementary School. I think I just wanted to be with my friends who were off being “performers.” I picked up poetry after my sister did because everything she does is really cool and worthy of stealing, and because it’s such an engaging and elegant way to communicate. There’s something enthralling about words and rhythms and sounds and the creation of a real moment between a performer and an audience. Very few art forms let you look at an audience and explicitly tell them what you want them to know.

What made you decide to participate in the UVL Prelims?
Well we were at the Third North Open Mic Night and they made an announcement about the UVL Prelims coming and we said, “We should do that.” We originally were going to have a group of four people sing and play around with “Bennie and the Jets,” but that kind of fell through, so we did this instead.

What was the first thing that went through your mind when you found out you were advancing to the finals at Skirball?
It’s on a Thursday?

What would winning UVL mean to you?
Spiritual validation.

*Quotes attributed to Jason Trager*

A version of this article appeared in the Monday, March 3 print edition. Bryna Shuman is features editor. Email her at [email protected].