In order to learn more
about the upcoming Spoken Word Festival at
Nottingham Playhouse
writer Phil Lowe arranged to meet up with Deborah 'Debris' Stevenson,
founder of
The Mouthy Poets, to talk about their upcoming
extravaganza – Say Sum Thin 9. This is a whole day of performance,
music, creative workshops and live poetry at Nottingham Playhouse on
Saturday 25
th July 2015. The spoken word festival begins
at 12 noon and finishes at 10pm and Deborah was as passionate as ever
to expound upon the events and the organisation behind them. This is
the first time such a large event has been organised through
Nottingham's
The Mouthy Poets. Deborah elaborated.
“Every Summer we put
on a big Mouthy Poets show that generally takes up a large amount of
the Playhouse. We have an afternoon show plus an evening show. So, in
an infrastructural sense, yes we have had similar shows. However, in
our previous Say Sum Thin shows we have had one head-liner and
the event programming has only been for three or four hours. The
difference with this year is that it is a full on festival. Rather
than having one head-liner we have a hundred plus artists including
dancers, rappers,
Sheep Soup theatre company,
Nonsuch Theatre, Zodiac
All Stars, a dance group of fifty plus young people, Harry Baker and
many others. It is packed with international and local artists all
happening in one space and every single space is non stop programming
from 12pm to 7pm. Then we have this massive evening show in the main
auditorium which is packed full of artists including Mouthy Poets
plus a separate Mouthy Poets matinee. It's bigger and better and
certainly more of a festival than we have ever put on before. How can
I put it? Similar - times a hundred, basically!”
There is no denying the
passion behind the event. Deborah further explained that Nottingham's
Mouthy Poets meet every Friday. As a collective of fifty people and
through their management team, interns and the young people in the
company, together they organise and programme the event. This also
empowers the young poets into making real life decisions and promotes
their motivation within the poetry collective. Deborah picked up with
how it was all germinated this year.
“I guess really,
communally, the seeds were started in January this year when I
started booking artists but the intensive community organising aspect
has probably been ongoing since April. I'm crazy happy with
everything so far! The programming is really exciting. The standards
of the two separate Mouthy shows is really inspiring and thrilling. I
think because the ambition of the programming is so high our
young poets are rising to the challenge.
As part of the
programme we have got a poets vs. rappers battle with a local
organisation called Clash Money and we've got a play writing workshop
with internationally known children's playwright Nick Wood put on by
Nottingham Playhouse. In that workshop people will be making a play
during the day and then there will be a rehearsed reading in the
afternoon of those fresh new plays. To mix up the creativity we are
going to have a foraging room which will have loads of fresh plants
and up-cycled jewellery and other products. Flex Records have a
'paint something' workshop and then City Arts are showing a
'flexibition'. The whole space is being dressed by City Arts with all
their carnival art. Additionally, we are making giant poetry games
during the day and teaching book binding too. It is so massive that
the young Mouthy Poets have felt like they need to step up to that
and so, not to ruin anything too much, we have UV lights with poetry
being done in the pitch black with illuminated elements. Personally I
am stepping into a whole new genre by doing a grime rap track through
my own music.”
The Say Sum Thin 9
event sounded like huge commitment and Deborah continued with her
passionate explanation, concluding...
“We are all working
to a maximum capacity at the moment. We all keep laughing and we all
keep pushing towards excellence. I must say that working with new art
forms cross pollinating creatively between poets, musicians,
dancers, rappers and others is so stimulating and challenging in a
good way. It has really energised us all and as we don't have much
money everyone that is getting involved is doing so for artistic
reasons. Those creatives involved are excited to make a painting live
with poetry and children; they are excited to make a play live with
fifty people and then share it; they are excited about all the live
creativity that they can offer on the day and beyond. I think the
people of Nottingham will be excited too and we welcome everyone and
their families on the day. What we are getting out of it is the
sharing and engaging the public with our spoken word art or art in
alternative forms and enjoying that interaction as artists with the
public themselves. Our
Mouthy Poets ambition is to fill that main
auditorium with people enjoying the huge variety of creative work
being shown at
Nottingham Playhouse on Saturday 25
th.”
New programme information hot off the press! Click on timetable below for clearer image.
