Can't say I've ever extrapolated from or designated for later critical study any slam
performances I've witnessed other than the work of DJ Spooky. Perhaps he could have
been seen in competitive slams when he began, but I've caught his collaborations with the
architect Bernard Tschumi, re-editing of D.W. Griffith's film Intolerance, and VJ mash-
ups. Here's information about a multi-performative event I'm going out of my way to
attend, largely to sample for the first time the presentational style of 3 younger British
poets whom I've never had a chance to witness. Justin Katko intrigues me as well and I
have hopes that others whose names I'm encountering for the first time may stimulate.
"PRAXIS DUDES FEST
an international gathering of contemporary
performance art, poetry, and music
Saturday 06.20.09,$8, doors at 7pm, sets start at 8pm, 18+
THE VELVET LOUNGE 915 U Street NW, Washington, DC
Haley Dolan (Providence/DC)
Justin Katko (Providence)
Jow Lindsay (England)
Nour Mobarak (Portland)
Andrew Bucket (DC)
Ryan Dobran (NYC)
Joshua Strauss (Buffalo)
Keston Sutherland (England)
Mike Wallace-Hadrill (England)
Adrian Parsons (DC)
Chris Grier (DC)
Advantageous guardians of historical data-shreds."
Barry Alpert
On Wed, 17 Jun 2009 08:55:58 -0600, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
>Ah, you are cross, Tim.
>
>It's interesting that, that slams work thus (a bit like our CBC poetry
>contests, in which people also write to a theme).
>
>On the other hand, this brilliant PhD student wrote a thesis on Spoken
>Word performance, in which she made a strong argument for the way many
>in that field do challenge stereotypes, play a lot of queer cabarets,
>&, for their intended audiences, really do important cultural work
>(even if I still find a lot of the work she told us about boring in
>terms of what I seek in poetry).
>
>But this, yeah, I'm with you....
>
>Doug
>On 17-Jun-09, at 4:55 AM, Tim Allen wrote:
>
>> >"A poetry SLAM competition in two rounds.
>>
>> First Round: 4 Competing Categories:
>>
>> DARK poem - a sad poem wearing all black
>> GLAD poem - a happy poem in colourful clothes
>> SHAG poem - sexy words in lingerie, fetish, flesh
>> DRAG poem - gender-bending words in drag"< etc
>>
>> Probably a bit of fun but sooooo cliched it makes you cry. Why is it
>> that all this performance stuff is so predictable and conventional
>> and does everything to reinforce stereotypes (aesthetic and
>> otherwise)? The whole thing goes against the grain of challenge and
>> questioning, weather of genre, language or identity, that innovative
>> and experimental poetry are known for. This is why the performance
>> scene, despite all its rhetoric about being about youth and energy
>> etc, is ultimately so conservative and harmless and safe, and hence
>> why it is so acceptable to the literary establishment.
>>
>> Tim A.
>> excuse cross posting - by which I mean cross posting, not cross
>> posting
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