Ōtautahi Tiny Fest - a feast of art - Two stand-out shows featuring poetry

Ōtautahi Tiny Fest is a remarkable two day festival of epic proportions - 45 artists and 21 shows over two intense days - featuring theatre, poetry, dance, story-telling and intersectional forms showcasing the cutting edge of performative practice in Ōtautahi/Christchurch.

 

Here's a couple of shows that we think you might want to check out from two of Ōtautahi's most electric performance poets and theatre practitioners.

 

Gay Death Stock Take

Ōtautahi and NZ Poetry Slam Champion Nathan Joe presents a 'theatrical performance essay (with poetry elements)!' Kind of part TED-talk, part performance poem, part museum of personal history. Where birthday party meets mourning ritual. A brand new work by Nathan Joe, made in collaboration with Daniel Goodwin.

Nathan Joe is an award-winning theatre-maker and performance poet based between Tāmaki Makaurau and Ōtautahi. Recent work includes curating BIPOC spoken word event DIRTY PASSPORTS at Basement Theatre, a staged reading of his play Scenes from a Yellow Peril at Auckland Arts Festival, co-creating Slay the Dragon or Save the Dragon or Neither with A Slightly Isolated Dog, and directing Yang/Young/杨 for Auckland Theatre Company. He is also the current National Slam Champion.

Saturday 27th November, 10am

Ron Ball Studio, Christchurch Town Hall

Book Tickets 

 

 

 

Notes on a Migration

‘I think of my mother and father, standing by sunflowers
the plane tilts 
in a slow motion leapfrog 
to limboland
tucked knees under my chin 
the lights dim 
leaving, heading 
with both feet in’

'an imaginative journey traversing the entire world in this intimate, electric, political, part-memoir, part-story dreamscape drawn from Ullyart’s poetic journaling since leaving Heathrow and stepping foot in Ōtautahi in late 2017. She is supported on stage by experimental music maker Admiral Drowsy in a new collaboration especially for Tiny Fest.'

 

Hester Ullyart is an award-winning multi-disciplinary maker- writer, actor, visual and spoken word artist based between England and Ōhinehou since 2017. Original plays include; ‘The Ballad of Paragon Station’ (Stellar Original Content NZFringe, Ed Fest) ‘Paragon Dreams’ (Hull Truck, LAF). Original film includes ‘I am all the rooms of the house’ (Best Poetry Short DoDFest2020). Other Ōtautati work includes ‘How Dare You’ (Free Theatre), ‘Ship of Dreams’(Delaney Davidson). Directing includes ‘Our Town, Gladys and Alfie, Gladys and Daphne’ (LAF) and Robin Judkins’ ‘Free Bus to God’. Aotearoa screen work includes One Lane Bridge S2 (TVNZ/Great Southern). She is a National Poetry Slam 2020 finalist. 

Saturday 27th November, 5.30pm

Ron Ball Studio, Christchurch Town Hall

Book Tickets

 

NZ Poetry Slam 2018 National Final - in Christchurch!

It's been years in the coming (is that even a thing?) but finally the NZ Poetry Slam is about to have it's grand final in the South Island. Last year's champion Daisy Speaks (Daisy Lavea-Timo) broke the stranglehold of the north on the title of NZ Slam Champion and now she's helping to bring the event itself to Ōtautahi/Christchurch.

Just another milestone in the remarkable renaissance of spoken word in Christchurch and nationally over the last 15 years.

Today's the day, if you're in Christchurch get along to see the best of this year's regional slam champs battle it out on the mic for the national title. Local two-time champion Ray Shipley will lead a three person challenge from Ōtautahi including Barrett Rob and Troy Buckland.

The venue is the pretty much brand new Haeata Community Campus auditorium in Aranui.

Christchurch Poetry Slam in association with WORD Christchurch

For the first time ever, we're proud to present the Christchurch Poetry Slam as part of WORD Christchurch, the bi-annual literary festival for readers, writers and the bi-curious.

One of the biggest events on the Christchurch literary calendar, the Slam is going to be even bigger this year due to its inclusion in the festival programme and the interest generated from last year's champion Daisy Speaks going on to take out the NZ Poetry Slam in Hamilton.

There's even more on the line here as the NZ Poetry Slam will this year be hosted in Christchurch, so the 2018 ChCh champ gets to take home crowd advantage for the first time ever.

The Christchurch Poetry Slam 2018 will be hosted by the ever-irreverent Ciaran Fox, Slam Master (an honorary title if ever there was one) and featuring a special guest performance by NZ Slam impresario and one of the world's great performance poets Carrie Rudzinski. 

Pitting poet against poet, newcomer vs old-timer, it's poetry but not as you know it. (Unless you've been to one before...) The audience judges and the challenge to the poets is to connect, communicate and cut through.

Door sales only and this event will likely sell out so don't be late, either as audience or poet. Doors open and sign-up starts at 7pm. There is a limit of 12 slammers, first in, best dressed.

The official NZ Poetry Slam rules are here.

Christchurch Poetry Slam 2017

Just reposting this (many thanks to Melanie McKerchar for once again making a pretty fantastic poster!)



The year rolls around so quick! The New Zealand Poetry Slam is on again in November, in Hamilton. So it's time to find Christchurch's champion to take on the unruly northerners.

Once again we're pleased to be hosting the Christchurch Poetry Slam at Space Academy.

Christchurch Poetry Slam
Thursday 12th October, 7pm registration, doors open.
Space Academy 371 St Asaph St
$10 entry (all proceeds towards travel for the winner to the national final)

Remember: to compete you must be available to travel to Hamilton for the 4th November.

For the official rules see here.

Christchurch Poetry Slam 2017 - The Rules

Here are the official rules of the Christchurch Poetry Slam as per the NZ Poetry Slam.

Rules for NZ Poetry Slam

• 3 minutes or less with no minimum time (10 second grace period before points deduction)

• Time starts when poet speaks, however while poets can have time to settle and adjust microphone etc, this time is not limitless; ideally a poet should start before 10 seconds.

• Original (i.e. your own) poems only

• No props no music no costumes (i.e. clothing related to the content of your poem)

• In the case of a tie a slam-off will be required

• Random draw, for performance order.

 
Judging and scoring:

• 5 Audience Judges (chosen by MC and/or organiser) display score cards 0-10 (Decimal points allowed)

• Top and bottom scores drop off and total of remaining 3 scores is the total

• If Poet goes over grace period MC or Timekeeper to ask scorer to mark down points after the judges score… (Half a point penalty for every 10 seconds over time)

• After 4 minutes the MC can shut down the poet

• 'Sacrificial Poet' (non-competing) to start the night, to help calibrate scores.

• Slams are equally about writing, performance and audience response.

• Slammers should have at least 3 poems, as there will be three rounds for the Regionals and NZ Slam
  …

Book launch! Catalyst Volume 13, Instant Chemistry

Yes it's that best of all times for us - when we get to announce the launch of the latest volume of the flagship publication from our Republic of Oma Rāpeti Press.  That's right, it's the arrival of a brand new, bouncing baby Catalyst - lucky volume 13.  And this one carries those rarest of rare Catalyst things - a subtitle!

Catalyst 13: Instant Chemistry
launching Thursday 25th August
in two sessions: 6pm-6.30pm & 6.45-7.15pm
at The Last Word, New Regent St

Catalyst 13 features poetry from our sister city Seattle, China, Bulgaria, Slam Poetry, and some of the leading poets from New Zealand.

We're excited to be featured in this year's WORD Christchurch programme in the New Regent Street Pop-Up Festival. The event will feature: Lady Poets, Catalyst poets, sci-fi and fantasy, erotica, flash fiction, live storytelling and more, in a variety of bars, cafés and shops on the evening of Thursday 25 August.  The book launch of Catalyst 13 will run with two sessions at 6pm - 6.30pm & 6.45pm - 7.15pm, at The Last Word.

The MC for the launch will be Ciaran Fox, with readings by contributors, featuring: Doc Drumheller, Mohamed Hassan, Ken Arkind, and Carrie Rudzinski. 

For more awesome literary action check out the rest of the programme for: WORD Christchurch

Catalyst Open Mic + special guest Mohamed Hassan NZ National Poetry Slam Champion

Mohamed Hassan is an Egyptian journalist and poet hailing from Auckland. He is the current National Poetry Slam Champion (2015), and has performed his work across New Zealand and overseas including at TEDx, Splore and the Adelaide Fringe Festival.

The months sure roll around these days don't they?

We're back on the mic at the Twisted Hop Pub in Woolston for the first Tuesday in May and we're putting on a treat for all those not fortunate enough to have been at the National Poetry Slam finals in Hamiltron last year - Mohamed is coming down from the mountain.  Well, the many mounts of Auckland anyway.

Our special guest for May is none other than Mohamed Hassan (pictured above) who took out the finals last year in emphatic style.  Doc recently did a gig with Mohamed in Hamilton and we're pretty stoked to host him in our little loft at the Hop.

Mohamed Hassan is a spoken word poet and journalist from Cairo, Egypt. He has spent the majority of his life in Auckland, navigating the spaces between two cultures and languages. A storyteller at heart, his poetry uses characters, narratives and humour to explore identity and society. He strongly believes in the power of poetry to build foundations for young people to speak and be heard. He was the winner of the Rising Voices Youth Poetry Slam 2013, and has been performing across Auckland stages for three years. He is part of a young collective of poets called the Waxed Poetic Revival.  In 2015 he added the NZ National Poetry Slam title to his achievements.

Here's Mohamed at TEDxAuckland: