{"id":8685,"date":"2014-03-05T08:50:43","date_gmt":"2014-03-05T16:50:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=8685"},"modified":"2014-03-07T14:07:54","modified_gmt":"2014-03-07T22:07:54","slug":"victoria-spoken-word-festival-ready-to-break-barriers-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2014\/03\/05\/victoria-spoken-word-festival-ready-to-break-barriers-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Victoria Spoken Word Festival ready to break barriers again"},"content":{"rendered":"

Festivals have a way of bringing people together. Whether it\u2019s over the mutual enjoyment of an event or the communal thrill of sardining together into an already over-packed auditorium, they tend to bring out the best in people. The Victoria Spoken Word Festival promises to be no different. With talent swept in from far and wide, the weekend should be an exciting chance to see some nationally known artists as well as some new ones.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Participants at a past Spoken Word Festival get wild (photo by David Bukach).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe festival is actually really geared towards younger and emerging artists, the idea being that if you\u2019ve been going to an open mic or a slam there\u2019s a very big gap between slamming and touring Canada,\u201d explains festival artistic director Missie Peters. \u201cThere\u2019s not a lot of development opportunity in Canada to help you get there, so for me it\u2019s a way to help bridge that gap and show people that they can take their art beyond a coffee shop.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peters says that finding the right mix of people for the event was key for her. And by getting newcomers to the spoken scene and some more established folks, she\u2019s managed to find what she feels is a good mix.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a bunch of people who\u2019ve probably only been doing it for two years, or people who came out of the high school program so they\u2019re only 19, but then I also have some people who\u2019ve been doing it for a decade. My main focus is bringing together the right group of people so there is variety between them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The festival, now in its fourth year, has shown a lot of growth since its debut. After moving to a bigger venue, the organizers are especially hyped to put on a memorable show. Artists from as far as Quebec and Detroit have been recruited to perform their special brands of entertainment and share their wisdom.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy set will be a very eclectic mix of stories and poems and music inspired by the festival\u2019s interdisciplinary storytelling theme,\u201d says poet of honour Barbra Adler. \u201cMy topics range from cat food to intimidating fathers to moon burials.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adler says that when she was starting out, the most important thing she got from attending festivals was realizing that there was a group of people out there who loved the same thing she did.<\/p>\n

\u201cI definitely didn\u2019t know that in high school, and it was sometimes even hard to find that at university,\u201d she says. \u201cConnecting with the spoken word community was my first experience of feeling like I had found my people. It definitely made life a lot less lonely, but more than that, it gave me something to aspire to. It\u2019s really easy to think you\u2019ve seen it all until you check something out that totally rewires your expectations of what\u2019s possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is this kind of connection that Peters has worked so hard to create. In addition to bringing in professional artists to perform, she has collected an ensemble of talented artists who will participate in workshops throughout the weekend and then create three nights worth of shows in just a few hours. The artists will learn different techniques and explore different mediums in order to better understand their own art.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year\u2019s theme is \u2018inside story\u2019 and it\u2019s about our role as storytellers and poets, kind of playing with archetypes. And there\u2019s going to be puppets, so there\u2019s a lot of fun there with story structure,\u201d says Peters.<\/p>\n

The hope is to bring a little bit of excitement to all of those who visit the festival and help them explore new things. For spoken word artist\/playwright Cathy Petch, who will be performing as part of the ensemble, the festival is a way to introduce spoken word to those who may have not experienced it before.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis festival is really important, because it shows people this art that might completely appeal to them. Some people in Victoria might not find a voice until they find spoken word and see a community around it and some acceptance, and they\u2019ll be embraced for finding what\u2019s important to them,\u201d says Petch. \u201cIt drums up a scene that can stay all year; we all have our local slams but if there\u2019s a festival it gets more media, it gets more credit. It gives everyone a taste of what spoken word is and it sort of demystifies it and makes it accessible to people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peters feels that the event matters as it provides people an opportunity to push barriers and explore new creative processes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe festival is important because it really gives poets a playground to take risks, to challenge themselves, to try new things,\u201d she says. \u201cThis is my heart, this is the thing that I\u2019m most proud and passionate about to put on all year because it\u2019s about giving people a safe place to take risks and about showing my community something really cutting edge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Victoria Spoken Word Festival
\n8pm March 4 to 9, $40 pass ($10-12 per event)
\nvictoriaspokenwordfestival.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Festivals have a way of bringing people together. Whether it\u2019s over the mutual enjoyment of an event or the communal thrill of sardining together into an already over-packed auditorium, they tend to bring out the best in people. The Victoria Spoken Word Festival promises to be no different. With talent swept in from far and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,123],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-march-5-2014"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8685"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8690,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8685\/revisions\/8690"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}