VSWF Spotlight: On the Fringe with RC Weslowski

RC with his cruel phone book.

RC Weslowski is a featured poet at this year’s Victoria Spoken Word Festival. An award-winning spoken word artist from Vancouver, Weslowski is known for being on the bleeding edge of spoken word. This year he’s bringing his second solo show ‘The Cruelest Phone Book in the World’ to the festival.

This is your second solo show. Why do you think spoken word works so well in this format?

While my shows that I've written for Fringe are not what I would call "pure" spoken word since I incorporate clown and some acting as well as the words, I think theatre works well for spoken word because of the long form format.  It allows the poet/performer to flesh out their ideas a little more and in my case create a dramatic arc and story that is filled with poetic elements but is not entirely poetry either.

You’re known as a surrealist, a dadaist, and just plain weird. How would you describe yourself as an artist?

I would describe myself as an explorer.  

I am trying to find the best way to connect with audiences in the moment.  I like to experiment and do the things that excite me and hopefully by extension excite the audience too.  

You were the Poet of Honour at the first Victoria Spoken Word Festival. What makes this festival unique, for you?

What I like about the Victoria Spoken Word Festival is that I think it embraces experimentation.  It doesn't assume that spoken word has to be just one thing, it can have many variations and I really like that.  

A friend of mine mentioned to me just the other day that their friend said to them almost in frustration after seeing so many poets not take any risks "you guys are doing a fringe art form, you can do whatever you want!"  And I think the VSWF is full of that kind of energy.

Watch RC perform “If Language was a Virus”

RC Weslowski headlines at Storytime For Adults as part of the Victoria Spoken Word Festival.

Storytime for Adults - March 5

Storytime for Adults

Wednesday, March 5^th 8pm

Intrepid Theatre, 1609 Blanshard

Tickets $12 on www.ticketrocket.org

VSWF Spotlight: Sponsor Love

This month is Valentines, and for Valentine's Day we wanted to show our love for our amazing sponsors.

The Victoria Spoken Word Festival is a community festival that celebrates our West Coast vibe, so we love to work with local businesses. We want to showcase what makes Victoria unique, as unique as spoken word, and we are so proud to partner with these amazing businesses:

We LOVE our sponsors!

First up is Intrepid Theatre - the home of the festival since the beginning. Intrepid has a mandate to support emerging and independent artists, and we are so excited to officially partner with them this year. Check out their next festival UnoFest in May!

The Solstice Cafe is the home of spoken word in Victoria. They regularly host Tongues of Fire and Vic Slam there on Thursday nights - go check it out! But get there early, these events regularly sell out. Solstice if the official coffee sponsor for the festival, they'll be keeping our poets alert and happy.

Two festival poets performing at Solstice Cafe.

The Mint has hosted the launch party for the Victoria Spoken Word Festival for the last three years, welcoming the visiting poets with their funky vibe and great food. The Mint has a new lunch spot upstairs too - so check them out night or day!

If Solstice is the host of spoken word, than Cenote's is the official hang-out of poets in Victoria. Super friendly and welcoming, and with a kitchen that's open late, Cenote's is a great spot to grab a drink after a show. You may even catch a festival poet there over the course of the festival!

The Mint kicks it all off!

UVic's radion station, CFUV has also been a sponsor for the last three years, and a great supporter of the local arts scene. This year, several of the festival ensemble will be doing a live performance on the air - March 3rd at 1:30pm tune in to hear a 'taste' of what the festival holds.

One of the most important things in the festival (to us as hosts) is to treat our visiting poets as best as we can - and that includes feeding them! With the help of amazing local restaurants The Reef a great caribbean themed restaurant, Hernande'z Victoria's favourite Mexican restaurant, NoodleBox home of Victoria's original box, John's Place (a great breakfast joint!) and Stone's Throw (new comedy hotspot!) we're able to feed them delicious, local lunches every day.

The Reef on Yates

Shout outs also go out to Munro's for giving each of our ensemble members a journal (poets need pages!) and Roger's Chocolates for providing chocolates (poets need chocolates!) and to our great friends TEDxVictoria for helping get the word out about the festival.

The Victoria Spoken Word Festival is also thankful for the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des arts et des lettres de Quebec.

If you couldn't tell already - it really does take a community to put together a festival, and we are so honoured by the support and help of these businesses in our community.

The Victoria Spoken Word Festival would not happen without them. So this February, why not show them a little love - go have a meal, buy a drink, a book or see a show at one of our fabulous sponsors.

Because they deserve to be your Valentine.

The Victoria Spoken Word Festival runs March 4-9 at Intrepid Theatre and Metro Theatre. Buy tickets online at Ticket Rocket. 

VSWF Spotlight: Steve Currie

The heart of the Victoria Spoken Word Festival is the festival ensemble – 12 poets from all across the country who come together to workshop and perform together over the course of the week. Every year we’ve had one poet return from the previous year as our ‘veteran’. This year’s returning poet is Steve Currie, Winnipeg’s 2012 Slam Champion.

Here he writes about what has brought him back to the festival:

Steve Currie performing at last year's Ensemble Showcase - photo by Brett Reid

Two years ago I would have steered far clear of an event described as “poetry for poets”. I wasn't a writer then, certainly not a poet, I was a comedian and a youth worker. I wouldn't go to my first slam for three months, wouldn't meet Missie for five or six. For me, then, “poetry for poets” evoked an image of be-tweeded academics reciting their home-spun Shelley knock-offs to one another; more power to them, but not exactly a hot ticket for me.

A year later.

I'm holding two cups of coffee, I purchased the one in my right hand because I had forgotten the one in my left. I was distracted, something was happening. That morning my ensemble had started writing a piece of poetry, that evening would be its premiere, and finale. It was the closing night of the Victoria Spoken Word Festival.

One of the two aforementioned coffees - photo Brett Reid

On the stage my ensemble mates were deciding which yogic poses would allow them to construct a giant face with their bodies. At my feet were about a dozen board games, I was writing short poem about a dead pawn. The whole theater was echoing the tune of a ukelele sea shanty, it had been written 20 minutes earlier and proved to be extremely catchy. I'm humming the chorus right now.

The ukelele man starts the show with a sea shanty - photo Brett Reid

This was poetry for poets, for the kids who had been to a hundred open mics, slams, features and workshops. This was poetry, but who would recognize it as such? It looked more like the puppetry workshop we had done earlier in the week, it sounded more like a particularly nonsensical shoot-the-shoot of the type we'd been having nightly at Cenotes. I was playing a chess player living eternally in the belly of a sea beast. Of course I was.

The show happened, it was the culmination of a week's worth of workshops in writing, puppetry, mask, and physical theatre. It was the first collaboration of fourteen poets; the strangers and aquaintances and crushes who I was honoured to first call peers, then friends, then whatever we were when we made that show. Beastmates, maybe.

Steve's arm playing poetic chess with Edmonton's Colin Matty - photo Brett Reid

I won't try and describe the piece. Find someone who was there. Don't ask them what it was about, but ask them how they felt about it afterwards. The people I asked said they were crying the next morning, that their hearts had changed shape, and about a hundred different ways of saying “dazed”. For me, it was the first time I felt like a poet. The route to that affirmation strayed a long way from the desk and the typewriter, and a lot closer to the jungle gym I played imagination games under as an eight-year-old. The festival- the performances, the workshops, the ensemble and the final beast- taught me that Capital-P Poetry, the stuff that crashes about your mind and leaves you itchy in your bones for more, is a far stranger beast than I ever would have guessed.

This March, come see my new ensemble. See us write new poems, play with puppets, and feature our best material. You won't be disappointed, these are intensely talented people. If you are like me, you know this, because you have Youtube'd them. Come to these shows and expect to be impressed, provoked, delighted and seduced. You will be. But come back on Saturday, come and see the finale, the good stuff, the love song we write to ourselves and our art. Come see the poetry for poets.

Watch Steve Currie perform ‘To Whom It May Concern’ on the Youtubes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyHURjXVj7A

The Victoria Spoken Word Festival runs March 4th-9th:

Get tickets online at http://ticketrocket.org/victoria-spoken-word-festival-2/.

Visit www.victoriaspokenwordfestival.com to find out about the shows!

VSWF Spotlight: The Poetry in Puppetry

Poetry is about making words and ideas come to life. Puppetry is about making ordinary objects come to life. So what do you get when you combine poetry with puppets?

We’ll find out on March 6^th at the Poeteers! show as part of the fourth annual Victoria Spoken Word Festival.

This is a new show for the festival and came out of the success of last year’s puppetry workshop with Master Puppeteer Tim Gosley. The poets had so much fun making and playing with puppets that this year we decided to go even further and pair the festival ensemble poets with local puppeteers and see what they can create together.

Victoria has a wonderfully vibrant puppetry scene – in fact in September 2013 Victoria will have an international puppetry festival! From shadow puppets, to transformed objects to giant puppets Victoria has a wealth of talent.

Meet some of the puppeteers who will be collaborating with the ensemble:

Kathleen Greenfield – The director of Little Orange Man and Kitt and Jane, Kathleen is comfortable with the collaborative creation process and has a special knack for turning ordinary objects, such as vegetables, into puppets!

Kathleen Greenfield

JunkTime Puppets – Shoy and Meesh are local Victoria puppeteers who love to make their own puppets. Watch a snippet of them performing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tfiCzl75HY

Janet Walker is a musician, playwright, puppeteer and illustrator.  Recently she is making cut-out cardboard shadow shows with live acoustic music. She likes to combine spoken word with performance art. Check out what she does here: http://janetwalkerart.wordpress.com/

Janet Walker

Julie Gennai is a puppeteer, artist and musician. She particularly likes playing with textures and using unique materials to make puppets. She likes puppets so much she once biked solo across Canada to study with the Bread and Puppet Co. in Vermont.

Julie Gennai

Danika Boyce is writer, comic and puppet maker who sometimes writes plays and sings songs. She belongs to the Polestar Puppet Collective in Victoria.

Giant Puppets Leona and Leah operate giant larger-than-life puppets named Olio and Opus – you may have seen them at Bike Ride last summer! http://giantpuppets.ca/

Olio and Opus!

In addition to these fantastic artists, the Two Dope Boys, better known as Shayne avec i  grec and Johnny MacRae, will perform a brand-new piece incorporating puppetry. Closing out the evening will be Master Puppeteer Tim Gosley with a very special performance of P.K. Page’s puppet play ‘The Blind Men and the Elephant’ using LED lights and shadow puppets.

Master Puppeteer Tim Gosley

It will be a magical evening that will be a feast for the eyes as well as the ears! So get your tickets now: http://ticketrocket.org/victoria-spoken-word-festival-2/

Find out more about the festival:

http://www.victoriaspokenwordfestival.com/
http://www.facebook.com/events/1474828702744477/

VSWF Spotlight: Behind the Scenes

Building the Victoria Spoken Word Festival

This is the fourth year for the Victoria Spoken Word Festival – bringing together more than dozen spoken word artists from across Canada to be the Festival Ensemble, plus spotlight performances by RC Weslowski, Mighty Mike McGee, Jeremy Loveday, 2 Dope Boys and this year’s Poet of Honour Barbara Adler.

But what about the many artists that work behind the scenes to make the festival look and feel as it does? Let’s shine the spotlight on them:

Graphic Designer – Meags Fitzgerald

People’s first impression of an event comes from spotting the poster in the street, or picking up a flyer, or seeing the event on Facebook. So, the role of the graphic designer is absolutely vital. This is second year that the fantastic Meags Fitzgerald has designed the look for the festival (she also designed the 2012 festival).

Meags is an illustrator, designer and exhibiting artist. She holds a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts Degree in Drawing and a Post-Degree Certificate in Design. She also does awesome things with photobooths, and is currently writing and illustrating a graphic novel, Photobooth: A Biography.

Website: http://www.meagsfitzgerald.com/ 

Photographer – Casey Bennett

If a designer is the audience’s first impression, then the photographer is the audience’s last impression – capturing the memorable moments and giving them back to the audience.

Casey is a local event photographer. You can usually catch him behind the lens at live shows and festivals such as Rifflandia and TEDxVictoria. His specialty is protraits - see his street portraits on his website - and this year he'll be capturing each of our festival ensemble poets in their own portrait as well as live performances.

Website: http://caseybennettphotographer.com/ 

Director – Dave Morris

The final product of the festival is the Finale: Inside Story – a show completely conceived , written and developed in one day. But in order to do this, and make it something wonderful on the other end, you need someone to herd the cats, to shape the vision and to guide the artists in collaboration. 

That someone is Dave Morris. Perhaps best known in Victoria as a master improviser and leader of award-winning Paper Street Theatre, this is Dave’s second year as the Director of the Finale. He brings his ability to create instantly, his willingness to take risks and fail joyfully, and his love of collaboration to help guide the ensemble.

Website: http://davemorrisisa.com/

PS - Dave is also the web designer for the festival – go check out his work, and the poets themselves in the Poet Gallery at www.victoriaspokenwordfestival.com

Tickets are on sale now for the Victoria Spoken Word Festival: http://ticketrocket.org/victoria-spoken-word-festival-2/

Victoria Spoken Word Festival 2014

Not Your Grandma's Poetry is proud to present the fourth annual Victoria Spoken Word Festival happening March 4-9, 2014 at Intrepid Theatre and Metro Theatre in Victoria, BC.

The festival is six days of poetic innovation, collaboration and inspiration with more than 20 poets from across North America including Poet of Honour punk accordion poet Barbara Adler of Ten Thousand Wolves, "stand-up poet" Mighty Mike McGee and Vancouver's purveyor of weird RC Weslowski. The festival features an ensemble of more than a dozen poets who will perform new work each night.

For more information about shows and poets visit www.victoriaspokenwordfestival.com.

Tickets on sale at http://ticketrocket.org/victoria-spoken-word-festival-2/. 

Stories by the Glass - November 2013

Stories by the Glass was the annual fundraiser for the Victoria Spoken Word Festival 2014. 

The show featured local theatre favourites Ian Case, director of Giggling Iguana, Dave Morris, master improviser and storyteller, and David Radford, director and actor at Launch Pad Prods on stage, telling impromptu stories while they shared drinks. The show was at Intrepid Theatre, a major partner of this year's festival.

The Victoria Spoken Word Festival runs March 4-9, 2014.