Les arts de la parole

Tanya Evanson is an Antiguan-Canadian poet, performer, producer and arts educator from Tiohtià:ke/Montreal. She is also director of Banff Centre's Spoken Word program.
 
With a history of 20 years in spoken word performance, she received the 2013 Golden Beret Award for her contribution to the genre and was Poet of Honour at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word. Alongside features in documentaries, videopoems, tv and radio, notable live performances include Vancouver Writers Festival, Bowery Poetry (New York), Story-Fest (Australia), Ubud Writers Festival (Bali), Poetry Africa (South Africa), Edinburgh Book Festival and Glastonbury.
 
Her fourth studio album and band project ZENSHIP (2016 Mother Tongue Media), received critical acclaim for pushing boundaries between poetry and live music. Following six artist books, Bothism (2017) is her first published poetry collection with Ekstasis Editions and Nouveau Griot (2018) is fresh from Frontenac House. Other recent print work includes Arc Poetry Magazine, WSQ-Feminist Press, Making Room (Caitlin Press), and Resist Much/Obey Little (Dispatches Editions). She moonlights as a whirling dervish.

www.mothertonguemedia.com

Photo credit: Temmuz Arsiray

Performing writer Miles Merrill brought poetry slams to Australia from Chicago. He is the spark for dozens of spoken word programs across the Asia-Pacific region. He has hosted an ABC TV special on poetry slams, performed solo at Sydney Opera House and published award-winning poetry in print, audio and video. He tours music festivals, theatres, galleries, schools…everywhere, like Krakow’s Audio Art Festival and writers festivals in Singapore, Hong Kong, India…anywhere his word travels. He is founder of the Australian Poetry Slam (APS), an international performing writers' program, which sees about 1000 writers performing in 80 events across the Asia-Pacific every year. APS culminates annually in October with Story-Fest—a 3-day performing writers’ festival in collaboration with Sydney Opera House.

Merrill’s practice, as Creative Director of the literary arts organization Word Travels, focuses on empowering people from diverse and marginalized communities to share their stories and poems with the world.

www.milesmerrill.com | www.wordtravels.info | www.australianpoetryslam.com

Catherine Kidd has been writing and performing zoology poetry for over two decades. Described as “an adult blend of Dr. Seuss and Aesop’s Fables,” her first poetry show Sea Peach won a MECCA (Montreal English Critics’ Circle Award) for Best New Text, touring to Toronto Harbourfront’s World Stage, the Edinburgh Fringe, and the Spier Arts Poetry Festival in Cape Town. Graduating with great honours from Concordia’s MA Creative Writing program, Catherine has taught writing there and elsewhere; most recently leading poetry workshops with students in Nunavik. The first chapter of her novel, Missing the Ark, was nominated for a Journey Prize; other writing appearing in Matrix, This magazine, and PEN International. Cat has performed in festivals from Oslo to Yellowknife; Barcelona, Bristol, and Bavaria. Her solo show Hyena Subpoena was presented at the National Museum of Singapore, and toured the Canadian Fringe festival circuit last summer in a camper van.

Saul Williams has been breaking ground since his debut album, Amethyst Rock Star (2001), executive produced by Rick Rubin. After gaining global fame for his poetry and writings at the turn of the century, Williams has performed in over 30 countries and read in over 300 universities, with invitations that have spanned from the White House, the Sydney Opera House, Lincoln Center, The Louvre, The Getty Center, Queen Elizabeth Hall, to countless, villages, townships, community centers, and prisons across the world. The Newburgh, New York native gained a BA from Morehouse and an MFA from Tisch, and has gone on to record with Nine Inch Nails and Allen Ginsberg, as well as countless film and television appearances.  2016's 'Martyr Loser King' album and most recently, collaborative Jazz record 'Blues For Memo', with legendary Jazz Saxophonist, David Murray, has earned world-wide acclaim for Williams' incredible music versatility and incredible performances.

Daniel Gallant is the Executive Director of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, the Director of Arts Japan 2020, and a teacher, writer and performer. He is the recipient of an Eisenhower Fellowship and fellowships from National Arts Strategies and the Devos Institute; he was also recently named to the Fulbright Specialist roster. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Time Out New York, The New York Post, six anthologies from Applause Books and Vintage Books and elsewhere. He has been featured in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Forbes, Adweek, Crains New York, Inc., New York Magazine, and on MTV, NPR, NY1, PBS and CNN’s United Shades of America. He has lectured and performed at venues including the Kennedy Center, Summerstage, Lincoln Center, the Brooklyn Museum, BAM, the 92nd Street Y, Town Hall, Bowery Poetry Club, Columbia University, Amherst College, NYU and many more.