SAHARA SISTA S.O.L.S
  • Home
    • Bio
  • Director
    • Shake 38
    • The Gifts
    • The One Woman Show
    • Native SOL Art & Performance
  • Librarian
    • The Library SIs
  • Our SOuLS LLC
  • UX Research & UI Design
  • Writer
    • Blog
    • Spoken Word Artist

Welcome to Slam

8/9/2018

Comments

 
Picture

​2018 Slam Team   

If you have never been to a poetry slam, I'm sorry your life sucks. Hahaha! Nah, it's all good. My journey into the slam world started from seeing Twista and poet George Watsky spit. I was hooked. I hadn't ever spit my poems with so much fire, but I wanted to learn how.

At first it wasn't even for slam as much as for the stage that a group of us Beavers (my college mascot... I know...) got together with a piano and our notebooks. We started opening up for people like Shihan and The Asia Project. What I wanted us to do was attend CUPSI, the college slam competition, and I became obsessed with the Chicago team that went to Brave New Voices (BNV), the high school slam competition. But chick had to graduate from college and (gulp) adult.



I packed my bags for an internship in New York at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. Broke. Fresh out of college. My hustle wasn't that great. So I packed my bags again and came to St. Louis.
​
Fast forward cause ya'll have read my blog. (right?) Any who, once in St. Louis I started hitting the open mics. Particularly, Legacy poet night on Fridays hosted by UrbArts and Hustle & Flow. Now you can find "hella" open mics in the Lou. One day, there was a slam being held. And I decided. Why not? Let's try it. I love new things.

Five years later and here I am still slamming. I've been flirting with "retiring" from competition. Letting these poems do some workshop rehab.

But first... I'm headed to Nationals with the St. Louis Poetry Slam team. Each year I learn something valuable about slam that I didn't know before.


2017 Slam Team
​What is slam?
Slam is a sport of words and verbs. It is something that stems from the practice of break poetry. Every year teams from all over the country and poets from all over the world compete in slam competitions.
Are You Ready?
This year has felt completely different than other slam years. Maybe it's because I took a break and was asked to re-join later. Maybe it's because the team has "hella" group pieces. Or maybe I just know that I can do other things with my time so it makes slam time more charged now. I do know I want us to win this year and I think we can.
Why Slam?
I slam because it's a challenge for me. I started off as the poet who was cute, but... I wasn't connecting to audiences. I couldn't make the team even if I tried really hard. I wanted to do my best. I wanted to win. Through workshops and writing with others I've slowly transformed into a poet who actually can get my point across without it getting lost in translation. Now? I don't like the fact that I started becoming a poet who was "pimping pain for points". Not really, but I felt myself writing more about pain than anything else. How can I top this hurt. I know these stories must be told, but I wanted to heal. That's what I spent my time off doing. Healing.

I started writing to protest, to entice, to call to action, and to just vent. There was a time my poems were all about activism, erotica, faith, and whatever was on my heart at the time. I'm a broader writer now. Covering any and everything under the sun.

Since I've done the healing I just know slam (for me) isn't fun all the time. It hurts hearing all the things we've gone through as people. It hurts that our stories are so similar though we're all so different. It hurts. And though I cheer on my fellow poets. It gets difficult to sit in a room and be rubbed raw over and over. I often wonder if the people that NEED to hear these poems are even in the room. 

The times I feel the need to slam, I'll go rock a slam. I'll still compete as a indie and support this city (St. Louis). BUUUUUUT first let's get this Nationals competition on! I ain't done yet gosh darn it. I'm ready to go. To see our team go rock those stages in Chicago.

I'll probably blog more than normal this month. Since it's my blogaversary.

​Oh yea. Welcome to Slam.
Picture

​2016 Slam Team

Comments

Black & Theatre

2/1/2018

Comments

 
Picture
"What's it like being black and in theater? Do people every judge you off of... you know, skin?", my student ask with an earnest face, her big brown eyes searching for an answer as she timidly looked down at her own dark brown skin. 

It's black history month and I wanna take a look at the different areas that affect black folks to this day. How many no's did that person have to hear? Did they ever feel the pressure of the color of there skin when auditioning for those roles? Are they the one out of thousands that "made" it? I can only write about my experience as far as the places I've lived. Whether it's Baltimore, St. Louis, Iowa, or Knoxville the reach of black theatre is far and few. Now the bottom of the list is Iowa. Because it's Iowa, but there is still a widespread missed platform for black actors in the world.

Being a actor is hard. You have to face a slew of casting directors that could never call you back for a role or at least not for the role you deserve. I've been there. Sometimes left to wonder what I did or didn't do wrong. The great thing is that here in St. Louis there is only really a handful of minority actors and those actors all know each other one way or another. Coming from Iowa where I was almost the only minority let alone, black person that a casting team would see to St. Louis where they have their own black theatre groups it was comforting. The bad thing? It's still ruthless. Welcome to the home of the type cast.


Picture

​That's what I had to share with my student. Hollywood isn't the only place you can be typecast, it can happen anywhere. There are few, *cough, cough* Will Smith, actors that can get away with not playing the same type of character. Those are far and few. Most of us are left to deal with the character we're dealt. I don't really have a grievance with typecasting though, My issue comes with landing only those stereotypical roles. You know... The roles most black folk get. The gangster, the baby mama, the thief, the maid, and so forth. That's one of the reasons I struggle with theatre. There is the other factor that you could get lost in a role, but that's another blog post. Today, we're focusing on a much bigger issue. There aren't many works that have diverse enough roles to get out of those stereotypical roles. So your typecast sucks.

The great thing is that we live in St. Louis, the home of The Black Rep, a theatre designed to give the black actors and black plays a chance. Click below to check out there website. Despite being typecast I was able to let my student know that she lives in a place where black voices have space in the world. It's a community where you can be embraced instead of shunned for your skin. The black rep is selective of the people that they cast to be in their shows so it's not always easy to get in, but they do have internship and volunteer opportunities. 
The Black Rep St. Louis, MO
Arena Players Baltimore, MD
Knoxville, TN
There aren't a plethora of community opportunities for black actors to showcase their work, BUT organizations like JPEK Creative Works theatre exist. They produce more contemporary theatre that leans toward musical dramas. In Knoxville, 

This conversation started off as me just chatting with my student, but she helped me realize something. Representation matters. It's not enough to just tell her "you have to be confident in a audition." It's providing her with the resources, providing all minority kids with the resource even some adults so they can go out here feeling great. Not everyone can afford a semester's tuition of acting courses and why pay for something you might not even want or like when you'll NEVER have the chance to use it. That's why my idea for a production company will be something I'll slowly be working on for this new year. I want kids and adults who have limited funds to be able to take short courses on theatre and work towards creating their own productions.
Comments

    Jump Rope Sis

    Fitness. Life. Art. Travel. 

    Picture

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Actor
    Adulting
    Artist
    Author
    Black Celebration
    Career
    Community
    Faith
    Fitness
    Food
    Fringe Festival
    Life
    Locs
    London
    Money Moves
    Motivational
    Natural Hair
    New Work
    Non-Profit
    Peace Corps
    Poem
    Poet Life
    Poetry
    Solo Trip
    Study Abroad
    Teaching Life
    Theatre
    Travel
    Travel Tips
    UK
    Update
    Writer Life

    Archives 

    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    June 2020
    May 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    July 2015
    September 2014
    January 2014
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011

Picture

Email

sistasols@gmail.com

  • Home
    • Bio
  • Director
    • Shake 38
    • The Gifts
    • The One Woman Show
    • Native SOL Art & Performance
  • Librarian
    • The Library SIs
  • Our SOuLS LLC
  • UX Research & UI Design
  • Writer
    • Blog
    • Spoken Word Artist