Visit Slam pages.
22 September 2007
Onec again I only have a limited time to write, and only limited things that I can say.The last two days have been exhausting and enlightening. The political situation in Zimbabwe dominates my work here, and more specifically the work of all of the artists that I have met. There is the simple fact of lack of food, water and fuel and the queues for bread that stretch around the block. And there is the continual interference by the police and the military in everything that people try to do here.
Yesterday was the Bulwayo Power int he Voice Slam Semi Finals organsied byt he British Council in collaboration wioth Intawasa Literary Festival. The planning and mentoring has been going on for about 6 months with poets, storytellers and playwrights going into 20 local schools to help the young performance poets prepare. After all of this work the police came to the venue at the start of the gig and hauled the organisers , including my hosts Ignatius and Sekai, off to the police station for an hour and half - ostensibly to check that the event was not a British attempt to indoctrinate Zim children. Indeed, thre event would not have gained permission were it not for the partnership with Intawasa. As someone who regularly organises gigs in London ansd - more imortatntly - high pressure slam, I cannot concieve of what ti must feel like to have all those months of work, those children's dreams shattered within hours of the performance. The organsers looked tight faced and tight when they returned - but still they persisted. And that is the essence of the Zim people and particularly the spoken word artists that I have been privileged to meet. We could learn something from their fortitiude in the face of censorship.
One other note is that the PIV slam marked the very first time in my career that I have been asked to change my clothes before a performance as my trousers were...illegal. Excellent. Whilst bewildered at the notion of illegal trousers, I know have the title of my next show.
The slam itself was amazing. It lasted for over 3 hot dusty hours and showcased 20 group acts working in English, Ndebele and Shona. Their slams are markedly different and had the feel of the theatre shows. There were no microphones and they tended to act out their work in a way that we simply would not do. Today, I work with the 6 winning schools, showing them how we do it in the UK. On Monday and Tuesday it will be the African mentors that I will work with in a skills sharing session. I performed a couple of pieces at the PIV Slam - and was accompanied by rapper POY on stage. I will write more about this when I return - but the response was unbelieveable. On stage supporting the kids was anyone who was someone in the arts and music in Zim - something that we should be trying to do in London. They the top recording artist perform a couple of her tracks (she is of the same standing here as Kelis or Rhianna) and she even mentored ac ouple of the schools!
After the slam I performed at Intawasa Festival itself where I am now due to return to be interviewed about my work.
These events are so rare and so important to the peopel of Zim that every event is packed. Posters line the streets. Everyone knows who we are and what we are doing. And that we will continue to do it. No matter what.
20 September 2007
One of the proudest achievements of my life is that I have always lived off the back of my words. I have written myself. Today, against all of my instincts, I need to be very careful of what I say and what I write. And who may be watching and reading.
I am a performance poet, spoken word artist, playwright and writer - and, in that role, have been asked to perform and lead workshops in Zimbabwe by the British Council and Eastside Educational Trust (whilst also representing the Poetry Society) as part of a project called Power in the Voice. This is a fantastic project that brings together African youth between the ages of 14-18 in a slam arena. It also provides the opportunity for global artists like myself to skills share with each, and widen our cultural experience - all of which will feed directly into both our poetry and work with young people in London and Africa.
I arrived in Harare at 5.30am on Tuesday and - after bribing myself into the country with a £5 note which has enormous value here - was greeted by the British Council. I was due to fly from Harare to Bulawayo where the Zim Power in the Voice semifinals are taking place, but I suspect that mass fuel shortages was the reason behind why I was driven the six hours to the host city. My driver and companion during the drive was Ignatious Mabasa, a Zim poet, storyteller and novelist. He writes in both English and Shona, and is responsible for one of the most moving poems of the Mugabe era, 'We Carry Our Own Coffins'. And it would seem that the Zim people do. Food supplies are short and the majority, if not all, of the shops and supermarkets I have seen have been empty - aside from a few wildly overpriced overseas imports. We ate some rolls that Ignatious's wife had made. There was nothing else. Not even water. I have just been told that the Kalahari desert is stretching into Bulawayo and that two of the nation's dams are now empty. One of the women I have met here (the recipient of an MBE last year)recently went seventeen days without bathing. And this is a hot and sticky land. The other three dams are almost empty. But the driest things of all are the promises and lies told to the people. It is a criminal offence to mention the drought, so visitors like myself do not know that running a bath takes the water out of babies' mouths. To give you an idea of the economic crisis affecting the land, when I arrived I was given 64 million dollars to live on. Last night, I bought Ignatious and myself a meal that cost 3.2 million dollars. I had always imagined that I would leap, or at least smile slightly, if I became a millionaire. We both sat quietly. There is a silence about this place. On the drive to Bulawayo - ostensibly to see some of the land - we passed literally hundreds of people walking the dusty, thick roads, trying to get to work.
So. That is the edited version of the political situation. The poetry is quite another matter. There is a vibrancy and hope in the language of the streets. I have not yet performed here or witnessed any gigs but the people have a poetry about them. Even on the stiff necked red cheeked stung eared drive to Bulaway, Ignatious and I managed to invent Ndebele Betabox - a fusion urban African orchestra of clicks and dry tongue beats. There is every likelihood that we will perfom it tomorrow night. The greatest hope is that which Ignatious himself is providing. He has bought a plot of land, and wants to turn it into an international centre for storytelling. I will write more about this tomorrow, and ask for all of your comments and advice on this daring and ambitious venture.
In an hour, I will be visiting my first school and observing African artist mentors at work - and slapping my own tongue around a bit too. After this, there is a performance tonight, and the gig season begins.
There may be little food. There may be little water. Empty fuel tanks. But there is ALWAYS poetry.
Copyright Notice and Terms of Use:
This site contains copyrighted materials, including but not limited to text, photos and graphics. you may not use, copy, publish, upload, download, post to a bulletin board or otherwise transmit, distribute or modify any contents of the site in any way, except that you may download one copy of such contents on any single computer for your own personal non-commercial use, provided you do not alter or remove any copyright, author attribution, or other proprietary notices.