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90-466: Poetry slams began in Chicago in the 1980s, with the first slam competition designed to move poetry recitals from academia to a popular audience. American poet Marc Smith , believing the poetry scene at the time was "too structured and stuffy", began experimenting by attending open-microphone poetry readings, and then turning them into slams by introducing the element of competition. The performances at

180-681: A rap video featuring Rene Sharanya Verma performing at Delhi Poetry Slam, went viral on YouTube receiving over 1.5 million hits. In 2017 poet Malika Outtara estimated that there were only fifteen African women slam poets in total. One of the most notable figures in the slam scene in Burkina Faso is Malika Outtara. In 2019 she set up the Slamazone Foundation of which she is President, in order to fund raise for social issues in her country. Slam Poetry has been in Egypt since

270-472: A Bomb , the world's largest team-based youth slam and subject of a documentary by the same name. San Francisco-based a non-profit organization Youth Speaks Inc has also been running the Brave New Voices poetry festival since 1998. The youth poetry slam movement was the focus of a documentary film series produced by HBO and released in 2009. It featured poets from Youth Speaks, Urban Word, Louder than

360-435: A Bomb and other related youth poetry slam organizations. In a 2005 interview, one of slam's best known poets Saul Williams praised the youth poetry slam movement, explaining: Hip-hop filled a tremendous void for me and my friends growing up ... The only thing that prevented all the young boys in the black community from turning into Michael Jackson, from all of us bleaching our skin, from all of us losing it, just losing it,

450-421: A broad range of voices, styles, cultural traditions, and approaches to writing and performance. The originator of performance poetry, Hedwig Gorski, credits slam poetry for carrying on the poetics of ancient oral poetry designed to grab attention in barrooms and public squares. Some poets are closely associated with the vocal delivery style found in hip-hop music and draw heavily on the tradition of dub poetry ,

540-572: A deconditioning of impulse. The most widely circulated description of one of these post-theatrical events (a "beehive") is given by Andre Gregory , Grotowski's longtime friend and the American director whose work he most strongly endorsed, in My Dinner With Andre . Various collaborators who had been important to Grotowski's work in what he termed his "Theatre of Productions" phase had difficulty following him in these explorations beyond

630-577: A disciplined manner, with a full awareness of the responsibilities it involves. Here we can see the theatre's therapeutic function for people in our present[-]day civilization. It is true that the actor accomplishes this act, but he can only do so through an encounter with the spectator - intimately, visibly, not hiding behind a cameraman, wardrobe mistress, stage designer or make-up girl - in direct confrontation with him, and somehow " instead of" him. The actor's act - discarding half measures, revealing, opening up, emerging from himself as opposed to closing up -

720-640: A favoured tool of research. During this time Grotowski continued several collaborative relationships begun in earlier phases, and Maud Robart, Jairo Cuesta and Pablo Jimenez took on significant roles as performers and research leaders in the project. He also initiated a creative relationship with the American Keith Fowler and his student, James Slowiak. Another trusted collaborator was Thomas Richards, son of Canadian-American director Lloyd Richards , to whom Grotowski would ultimately pass on responsibility for his lifelong research. In 1986, Grotowski

810-534: A floor of Congress to look more like a National Poetry Slam. That would make me happy." At the 1993 National Poetry Slam in San Francisco, a participating team from Canada (Kedrick James, Alex Ferguson and John Sobol) wrote, printed and circulated an instant broadside titled Like Lambs to the Slammer , that criticized what they perceived as the complacency, conformity, and calculated tear-jerking endemic to

900-505: A long-standing collaboration with Maud Robart and Jean-Claude Tiga of Saint Soleil. Always a master strategist, Grotowski made use of his international ties and the relative freedom of travel allowed him to pursue this program of cultural research in order to flee Poland following the imposition of martial law. He spent time in Haiti and in Rome, where he delivered a series of important lectures on

990-522: A medium for expression and social interaction . The rules are “16 boxers face off in pairs in competitions of stand-up verse that last for three minutes. Winners compete in series of challenges such as timed presentation and a round of improvised jousting.” A master of ceremonies adds to the event by providing nicknames for the competitors. Kusunoki's goal was to try to get his students to open up by breaking language barriers and expressing themselves. Marc Smith (poet) Marc Kelly Smith (born 1949)

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1080-580: A newspaper, The very word 'poetry' repels people. Why is that? Because of what schools have done to it. The slam gives it back to the people.... We need people to talk poetry to each other. That's how we communicate our values, our hearts, the things that we've learned that make us who we are. With a like-minded troupe, Smith hosted the first poetry slam at the Get Me High Lounge in the Bucktown neighborhood in 1986. The event soon migrated to

1170-535: A poetry slam are judged as much on enthusiasm and style as content, and poets may compete as individuals or in teams. The judging is often handled by a panel of judges, typically five, who are usually selected from the audience. Sometimes the poets are judged by audience response. American poet Marc Smith was credited with starting the poetry slam at the Get Me High Lounge in Chicago in November 1984. In July 1986,

1260-407: A project, a poet—will become so dominant that it will kill the scene, but it never does. Ranting hipsters, freestyle rappers, bohemian drifters, proto-comedians, mystical shamans and gothy punks have all had their time at the top of the slam food chain, but in the end, something different always comes along and challenges the poets to try something new. One of the goals of a poetry slam is to challenge

1350-458: A rhythmic and politicized genre belonging to black and particularly West Indian culture. Others employ an unrhyming narrative formula. Some use traditional theatrical devices including shifting voices and tones, while others may recite an entire poem in ironic monotone. Some poets use nothing but their words to deliver a poem, while others stretch the boundaries of the format, tap-dancing or beatboxing or using highly choreographed movements. What

1440-669: A small laboratory theatre in 1959 in the town of Opole in Poland. During the 1960s, the company began to tour internationally and his work attracted increasing interest. As his work gained wider acclaim and recognition, Grotowski was invited to work in the United States and left Poland in 1982. Although the company he founded in Poland closed a few years later in 1984, he continued to teach and direct productions in Europe and America. However, Grotowski became increasingly uncomfortable with

1530-440: A specified theme, genre, or formal constraint. Themes may include Nerd , Erotica , Queer , Improv , or other conceptual limitations. In theme slams, poets can sometimes be allowed to break "traditional" slam rules. For instance, they sometimes allow performance of work by another poet (e.g. the "Dead Poet Slam", in which all work must be by a deceased poet). They can also allow changes on the restrictions on costumes or props (e.g.

1620-501: A three-week run. In 1973 Grotowski published Holiday , which outlined a new course of investigation. He would pursue this 'Paratheatrical' phase until 1978. This phase is known as the 'Paratheatrical' phase of his career because it was an attempt to transcend the separation between performer and spectator. Grotowski attempted this through the organization of communal rites and simple interactive exchanges that went on sometimes for extended periods, attempting to provoke in poor participants

1710-752: A trophy and went on to compete for the Grand Prize title of Glam Slam Champion. The annual competition was first held in New York City and then London until 2010. Poetry Slam, Inc., holds several national and international competitions, including the Individual World Poetry Slam, the National Poetry Slam and The Women of the World Poetry Slam. The current (2013) IWPS champion was Ed Mabrey. Ed Mabrey

1800-462: A work-team in Pontedera for several years, after which time funding cuts necessitated downscaling to a single research group, led by Richards. Grotowski characterized the focus of his attention in his final phase of research as "art as a vehicle," a term coined by Peter Brook . "It seems to me," Brook said, "that Grotowski is showing us something which existed in the past but has been forgotten over

1890-642: Is a dominant/successful style one year may not be passed to the next. Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz , slam poet and author of Words in Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam , was quoted in an interview on the Best American Poetry blog as saying: One of the more interesting end products (to me, at least) of this constant shifting is that poets in the slam always worry that something—a style,

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1980-423: Is an American poet and founder of the poetry slam movement, for which he received the nickname Slam Papi . Smith was born in 1949 and grew up on the southeast side of Chicago . He attended/graduated Charles P. Caldwell Elementary School and James H. Bowen High School . Smith spent most of his young life as a construction worker, but has written poetry since he was 19. Smith started at an open mic night at

2070-399: Is an invitation to the spectator. This act could be compared to an act of the most deeply rooted, genuine love between two human beings - this is just a comparison since we can only refer to this "emergence from oneself" through analogy. This act, paradoxical and borderline, we call a total act. In our opinion it epitomizes the actor's deepest calling. The year 1968 marked Grotowski's debut in

2160-424: Is considered a father of contemporary experimental theatre . Barba was instrumental in revealing Grotowski to the world outside the iron curtain. He was the editor of the seminal book Towards a Poor Theatre (1968), which Grotowski wrote together with Ludwik Flaszen , in which it is declared that theatre should not, because it could not, compete against the overwhelming spectacle of film and should instead focus on

2250-727: Is considered one of the most influential theatre practitioners of the 20th century as well as one of the founders of experimental theatre . He was born in Rzeszów , in southeastern Poland, in 1933 and studied acting and directing at the Ludwik Solski Academy of Dramatic Arts in Kraków and Russian Academy of Theatre Arts in Moscow. He debuted as a director in 1957 in Kraków with Eugène Ionesco 's play Chairs (co-directed with Aleksandra Mianowska) and shortly afterward founded

2340-513: Is considered responsible for key features, including the selection of judges from the audience and cash prizes. As stated in the PBS television series, The United States of Poetry , a "strand of new poetry began at Chicago's Green Mill Tavern in 1987 when Marc Smith found a home for the Poetry Slam." Smith had found a crowd-inclusive, entertaining method for nurturing the poetry scene. Since then,

2430-461: Is finding its way into courses and programs of study. For example, at Berklee College of Music , in Boston, slam poetry is now available as a minor course of study. Slam poetry has found popularity as a form of self-expression among many teenagers. Young Chicago Authors (YCA) provides workshops, mentoring, and competition opportunities to youth in the Chicago area. Every year YCA presents Louder Than

2520-543: Is judged by an applause meter which is actually not there, but might as well be. This isn't even silly; it is the death of art. Poet and lead singer of King Missile , John S. Hall , has also long been a vocal opponent, taking issue with such factors as its inherently competitive nature and what he considers its lack of stylistic diversity. He recalls seeing his first slam, at the Nuyorican Poets Café : "...I hated it. And it made me really uncomfortable and ... it

2610-627: Is new in popularity, the term "Ash-Shi'r al-Mu'adda" was recently introduced as the term for performance poetry. Poets such as   Bayram At-Tunisi , Ahmad Rami, and Kamel Ash-Shennawy paved the way after al-Misry with lyrical slam poems that use a melodic rhythm to attract the audience. In Japan , Katsunori Kusunoki, a professor of communications at Toyo University, found a way to incorporate slam poetry into his students’ lives; allowing them to showcase their competitiveness and love of poetry by putting together “poetry boxing” matches. Kusunoki created annual “poetry boxing” tournaments in order to provide

2700-552: The Green Mill , a tavern and jazz lounge in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood , where it has remained ever since. Other poets in the first slam were Mike Barrett, Rob Van Tuyle, Jean Howard, Anna Brown, Karen Nystrom, Dave Cooper, and John Sheehan, all fellow members of the Chicago Poetry Ensemble. According to Smith, the first slam was more variety show than competition. Though all slams vary in format, Smith

2790-480: The Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Tyehimba Jess , who competed as a part of Chicago's Green Mill team twice. A number of poets belong to both academia and slam: Henry S. Taylor , winner of the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry , competed in the 1997 National Poetry Slam as an individual and placed 75th out of 150. While slam poetry has often been ignored in traditional higher learning institutions, it slowly

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2880-629: The University of California, Irvine , where he began a course of work known as Objective Drama . This phase of his research focused on participants' psychophysiological responses to selected songs and other performative tools derived from traditional cultures , focusing specifically on relatively simple techniques that could elicit discernible and predictable effects on the 'doers', regardless of their belief structures or culture of origin. Ritual songs and related performative elements linked to Haitian and other African diaspora traditions became

2970-657: The Uptown Poetry Slam, a three-hour show featuring an open mic (1 hour), feature—poet or professional touring act (1 hour), and the poetry slam. It is the longest-running, weekly poetry show in the country, and one of the longest-running shows in Chicago history. In 1990, the first National Poetry Slam was held in San Francisco (with three city teams attending including Chicago and New York City ), and has continued to rotate among cities. The National Poetry Slam currently sees over 80 teams of poets vying for

3060-411: The collective unconscious '. Grotowski repeatedly described his rehearsal process and performances as 'sacred', seeking to revive what he understood to be the routes of drama in religious ritual and spiritual practice . To achieve his aims, Grotowski demanded that his actors draw from their psyches images of a collective significance and give them form through the motion of the body and the sound of

3150-453: The individual World Poetry Slam (iWPS), and the Women of the World Poetry Slam (WoWPS). The last National Poetry Slam took place in Chicago 2018, after which PSi's voting body elected to cease its three major 2019 poetry slams. The WoWPS has been held since 2020 through a new website. In a poetry slam, members of the audience are chosen by a master of ceremonies or host to act as judges for

3240-400: The "audiences are growing over there. And the aesthetic is growing and evolving." Smith has published several books about the poetry slam movement, as well as publishing two books of his own work. He tours extensively, performing his own, blue-collar, Carl Sandburg-influenced poetry and hosting poetry slams. He also tours with a show titled Sandburg to Smith-Smith to Sandburg, which combines

3330-592: The Get Me High lounge in November 1984 called the Monday Night Poetry Reading. Even as poets scoffed at artists "performing" their work, rather than gently "reading" it, the event grew in popularity. Smith saw his approach as an " up yours " to establishment poets he considered snooty and effete, because at their events, "no one was listening". According to Smith, who once attended a conventional reading with his manuscripts concealed inside

3420-857: The House of Xavier and the Glam Slam, an annual downtown arts event staged at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe (and later at the Bowery Poetry Club ). The fusion of ball culture and poetry slam competitions featured four open categories such as Best Erotic Poem in Sexy Underwear or Lingerie, Best Verbal Vogue and Best Love Poem in Fire Engine Red (alternately Best Bitter Break Up Poem in Blue). Winners of each category received

3510-504: The Russian as "the first great creator of a method of acting in the theatre" and praised him for asking "all the relevant questions that could be asked about theatrical technique." Among the many productions for which his theatre company became famous were Orpheus by Jean Cocteau , Shakuntala based on text by Kalidasa , Dziady (Forefathers' Eve) by Adam Mickiewicz , and Akropolis by Stanisław Wyspiański . This last production

3600-625: The Swedish "Triathlon" slams that allow for a poet, musician, and dancer to all take the stage at the same time), changing the judging structure (e.g. having a specific guest judge), or changing the time limits (e.g. a "1-2-3" slam with three rounds of one minute, two minutes, and three minutes, respectively). Although theme slams may seem restricting in nature, slam venues frequently use them to advocate participation by particular and perhaps underrepresented demographics (which vary from slam to slam), like younger poets and women. Poetry slams can feature

3690-566: The United States and eventually the world. In 1999, National Poetry Slam, held in major cities each year, was in Chicago. The event was covered nationally by The New York Times and 60 Minutes (CBS). 60 Minutes taped a 20 segment on slam poetry with live poetry scenes at Chopin Theatre. In 2001, the grounding of aircraft following the September 11 attacks left a number of performers stranded in cities they had been performing in. After

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3780-674: The West. His company performed the Stanisław Wyspiański play Akropolis/Acropolis (1964) at the Edinburgh Festival . This was a fitting vehicle for Grotowski and his poor theatre because his treatment of the play in Poland had already achieved wider recognition and was published in Pamiętnik Teatralny (Warsaw, 1964), Alla Ricerca del Teatro Perduto (Padova, 1965), and Tulane Drama Review (New Orleans, 1965). It marked

3870-595: The Workcenter shortly after its founding, also became a central contributor to this research. Although Grotowski died in 1999 at the end of a prolonged illness, the research of Art as Vehicle continues at the Pontedera Workcenter, with Richards as artistic director and Biagini as associate director. Grotowski's Will declared the two his "universal heirs," holders of copyright on the entirety of his textual output and intellectual property. Jerzy Grotowski

3960-585: The XVI Poetry Slam World Cup for the second time, represented by performance artist, writer, poet, and actor Lorenzo Maragoni , member of the artistic collective WOW - Incendi Spontanei , same as the former world champion Giuliano Logos. As of 2011, four poets who have competed at National Poetry Slam have won National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) Fellowships for Literature: As of 2017, one poet who has competed at National Poetry Slam has won

4050-542: The actors' bodies represent objects. He seated audience members as the guests at Faust's last supper, with the action unfolding on and around their table. In 1965, Grotowski moved his company to Wrocław , relabeling them a "Teatr Laboratorium", in part to avoid the heavy censorship to which professional "theatres" were subject in Poland at that time. Work had already begun on one of their most famous productions, The Constant Prince (based on Juliusz Słowacki 's translation of Calderón 's play). Debuting in 1967, this production

4140-607: The adoption and adaptation of his ideas and practices, particularly in the US. So, at what seemed to be the height of his public profile, he left America and moved to Italy where he established the Grotowski Workcenter in 1985 in Pontedera , near Pisa . At this centre, he continued his theatre experimentation and practice, and it was here that he continued to direct training and private theatrical events almost in secret for

4230-622: The apparently divisive and individual structure of the Western psyche, and evoke a spontaneous, collective, internal response'. James Roose-Evans states that Grotowski's theatre 'speaks directly to the fundamental experience of each person present, to what Jung described as the collective unconscious ... what Grotowski asks of the actor is not that he play the Lady from the Sea or Hamlet , but that he confront these characters within himself and offer

4320-502: The attacks, a new wave of poetry slam started within San Francisco. As of 2017, the National Poetry Slam featured 72 certified teams, culminating in five days of competition. Today, there are poetry slam competitions in a number of countries around the globe. Poetry Slam, Inc. used to sanction three major annual poetry competitions (for poets 18+) on a national and international scale: the National Poetry Slam (NPS),

4410-434: The authority of anyone who claims absolute authority over literary value. No poet is beyond critique, as everyone is dependent upon the goodwill of the audience. Since only the poets with the best cumulative scores advance to the final round of the night, the structure assures that the audience gets to choose from whom they will hear more poetry. Audience members furthermore become part of each poem's presence, thus breaking down

4500-415: The barriers between poet/performer, critic, and audience. Bob Holman , a poetry activist and former slammaster of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe , once called the movement "the democratization of verse". In 2005, Holman was also quoted as saying: "The spoken word revolution is led a lot by women and by poets of color. It gives a depth to the nation's dialogue that you don't hear on the floor of Congress . I want

4590-833: The boundary of conventional theatre. Other, younger members of the group came to the foreground, notably Jacek Zmysłowski, whom many would consider Grotowski's closest collaborator in this period. Theatre critics have often exoticized and mystified Grotowski's work on the basis of these paratheatrical experiments, suggesting that his work should be seen in the lineage of Antonin Artaud , a suggestion Grotowski strongly resisted. Later in life, he clarified that he quickly found this direction of research limiting, having realized that unstructured work frequently elicits banalities and cultural cliché from participants. In this period of his work, Grotowski traveled intensively through India, Mexico, Haiti and elsewhere, seeking to identify elements of technique in

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4680-503: The centuries; that is that one of the vehicles which allows man to have access to another level of perception is to be found in the art of performance." Moreover, it was in 1986 that Grotowski changed the name of the Italian centre to the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards, to signal the unique and central place Richards held in his work. Grotowski drove Richards to take on increasingly greater responsibility and leadership in

4770-664: The commercially successful Def Poetry television and Broadway live stage shows produced by Russell Simmons , decrying it as "an exploitive entertainment [program that] diminished the value and aesthetic of performance poetry". At the European level, the European Poetry Slam Championship (or European Slampionship) takes place every year. The Poetry Slam World Cup (Coupe du Monde de Slam, organised in France) also takes place every year. In 2022, Italy won

4860-745: The company; he/they felt Grotowski's work was unique but equally understood that its value was diminished if talked about too much, if faith were broken with the consultant. Grotowski's company made its debut in the United States under the auspices of the Brooklyn Academy of Music in the fall of 1969. BAM built a theatre for Grotowski's company in the Washington Square Methodist Church in Greenwich Village . Three productions were presented: Akropolis, The Constant Prince and Apocalypsis Cum Figuris during

4950-436: The confused babbling of the very small child and including the most sophisticated oratorical recitation. Inarticulate groans, animal roars, tender folksongs, liturgical chants, dialects, declamation of poetry: everything is there. The sounds are interwoven in a complex score which brings back fleetingly the memory of all forms of language. Grotowski and his group of actors became known in particular for their experimental work on

5040-442: The core of one's being, that it was a raw part of humanity, and that a poet had to be both fearless and dogged to tackle it properly. His dedication to this belief was so evident that when Smithsonian magazine covered the poetry slam phenomenon in their September 1992 issue, the reporter described Smith as "almost visionary on the need to rescue poetry from its lowly status in the nation’s cultural life." Since July 1986, Smith has run

5130-402: The event. In the national slam, there are five judges, but smaller slams generally have three. After each poet performs, each judge awards a score to that poem. Scores generally range between zero and ten. The highest and lowest score are dropped, giving each performance a rating between zero and thirty points. Before the competition begins, the host will often bring up a "sacrificial" poet, whom

5220-408: The first round. At the end of the slam, the poet with the highest number of points earned is the winner. The Boston Poetry Slam takes a different approach; it uses the 8-4-2 three-round format, but the poets go head-to-head in separate bouts within the round. Props, costumes, and music are forbidden in slams, which differs greatly from its immediate predecessor, performance poetry . Hedwig Gorski ,

5310-729: The first time many in Britain had been exposed to "poor theatre". The same year, his book titled Towards a Poor Theatre appeared in Danish, published by Odin Teatrets Forlag. It appeared in English the following year, published by Methuen and Co. Ltd., with an Introduction by Peter Brook , then an associate director at the Royal Shakespeare Company. In it he writes feelingly about Grotowski's private consulting for

5400-447: The founder of performance poetry as a distinct genre, saw props, costumes, and music as essential for a complete theatrical experience while also following theorist Jerzy Grotowski 's Poor Theater by blurring lines between the real person, actor, and speakers in scripted literary art. Other rules for slams enforce a time limit of three minutes (and a grace period of ten seconds), after which a poet's score may be docked according to how long

5490-475: The human voice, partially inspired by the work of Roy Hart, who in turn furthered the extended vocal technique initially established by Alfred Wolfsohn . Alan Seymour , speaking of Grotowski's 1963 production of Faustus noted that the performers' voices 'reached from the smallest whisper to an astonishing, almost cavernous tone, an intoned declaiming, of a resonance and power I have not heard from actors before'. The use of non-verbal voice in these productions

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5580-463: The judges will score in order to calibrate their judging. A single round at a standard slam consists of performances by all eligible poets. Most slams last multiple rounds, and many involve the elimination of lower-scoring poets in successive rounds. An elimination format might run 8-4-2; eight poets in the first round, four in the second, and two in the last. Some slams do not eliminate poets at all. The Green Mill usually runs its slams with six poets in

5670-583: The last twenty years of his life. Suffering from leukemia and a heart condition, he died in 1999 at his home in Pontedera. Jerzy Grotowski was 6 when World War II broke out in 1939. During the war, Grotowski, with his mother and brother, moved from Rzeszów to the village of Nienadówka . Grotowski made his individual directorial debut in 1958 with the production Gods of Rain , which introduced his bold approach to text, which he continued to develop throughout his career, influencing many subsequent theatre artists. Later in 1958, Grotowski moved to Opole , where he

5760-961: The original slam moved to its permanent home, the Green Mill Jazz Club . In 1987, the Ann Arbor Poetry Slam was founded by Vince Keuter and eventually made its home at the Heidelberg (moving later 2010, 2013, and 2015 to its new home at Espresso Royale). In August 1988, the first poetry slam held in New York City was hosted by Bob Holman at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. In 1990, the first National Poetry Slam took place at Fort Mason , San Francisco . This slam included teams from Chicago and San Francisco, and an individual poet from New York. Soon afterward, poetry slam increased popularity allowed some poets to make full-time careers in performance and competition, touring

5850-540: The poem exceeded the limit. Many youth slams, however, allow the poets up to three and a half minutes on stage. The slams at the Individual World Poetry Slam and Women of the World Poetry Slam competitions had a 1-minute round, a 2-minute round, a 3-minute round, and a 4-minute round. In an "Open Slam", the most common slam type, competition is open to all who wish to compete, given the number of slots available. In an "Invitational Slam", only those invited to do so may compete. In 1998, spoken word poet Emanuel Xavier created

5940-477: The poetry slam has spread throughout the world, exported to over 500 cities large and small. In the book, Words in Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam , author Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz describes the influential Smith: Extremely well-read and a disciplined, passionate writer, Smith did not think of poetry as something lofty, a refined ideal that people should strive to achieve. Rather, he believed that poetry should reflect

6030-582: The poetry slam scene. Over time, slam poetry has been criticized for lacking depth and for its features, e.g., " slam voice ," which may limit the range of emotion it can express. In an interview in the Paris Review , literary critic Harold Bloom wrote I can't bear these accounts I read in the Times and elsewhere of these poetry slams, in which various young men and women in various late-spots are declaiming rant and nonsense at each other. The whole thing

6120-488: The production was made with an introduction by Peter Brook , which constitutes one of the most accessible and concrete records of Grotowski's work. In 1964, Grotowski followed success with success when his theatre premiered The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus based on the Elizabethan drama by Christopher Marlowe , featuring Zbigniew Cynkutis in the title role. Foregoing the use of props altogether, Grotowski let

6210-408: The psyche of the audience'. But, for Grotowski, as for Hart, there was, between the psyche's reservoir of images and the bodily and vocal expression of that imagery , a series of inhibitions, resistances and blocks, which his acting exercises set out to remove. Many of the acting exercises and rehearsal techniques developed by Grotowski were designed to removing these personal obstacles, which prevented

6300-411: The rehearsal process upon their actors, and the impact of their performances upon the audience to psychotherapy , drawing upon the principles of Carl Jung and analytical psychology to explain the principles behind their creativity. Grotowski said that theatre 'is a question of a gathering which is subordinated to ritual: nothing is represented or shown, but we participate in a ceremonial which releases

6390-451: The result of that encounter to an audience. Grotowski, like Hart, did not consider the dramatic text or script to be primary in this process, but believed that the text 'becomes theatre only through the actors' use of it, that is to say, thanks to intonations, to the association of sounds, to the musicality of language'. Grotowski thus pursued the possibility of creating 'ideograms' made up of 'sounds and gestures' which 'evoke associations in

6480-553: The so-far-record of Nuremberg, Germany (25 hours), by Michl Jakob. The winner of the competition (Friedrich Herrmann) scored one point better in the finals than the second ranked (Darryl Kiermeier). The event was organized by Lukas Wagner (Slamlabor) and took place in the SN-Saal of the Salzburger Nachrichten. Similar to the House of Xavier's Glam Slam, a "Theme Slam" was one in which all performances must conform to

6570-593: The title. Over the years, Smith has turned down offers to commercialize the slam, including movie offers and bids for corporate sponsorship. Smith says that what he considers to be Slam's increased commercial exploitation, and Def Poetry Jam in particular, as having "diminished the value and aesthetic of performance poetry." This, combined with a continuing lack of Slam's recognition by "big literature festivals and institutions" in America, has led Smith to become more invested in performance poetry in Europe, where he says

6660-651: The topic of theatre anthropology at the Sapienza University of Rome in 1982 before seeking political asylum in the United States. His dear friends Andre and Mercedes Gregory helped Grotowski to settle in the US, where he taught at Columbia University for one year while attempting to find support for a new program of research. Unable (despite the best efforts of Richard Schechner ) to secure resources for his projected research in Manhattan, in 1983 Grotowski received an invitation from Robert Cohen to come to

6750-406: The traditional practices of various cultures that could have a precise and discernible effect on participants. Key collaborators in this phase of work include Włodzimierz Staniewski , subsequently founder of Gardzienice Theatre , Jairo Cuesta and Magda Złotowska, who traveled with Grotowski on his international expeditions. His interest in ritual techniques linked to Haitian practice led Grotowski to

6840-706: The twentieth century and was introduced by Hussain Shafiq al-Misry . According to al-Misry, having a variety jobs gave him the experience to understand the struggles of Egyptian people in different classes of life. He had good knowledge of Arabic literature, grammar and some commonly used foreign words as well as slang; which he used to form Halamantishi poetry. Muhammad Ragab Bayyoumi in 1986 wrote an article entitled Hussein Shafiq al-Misry: Ustaz la Tilmeeth lah" (Hussein Shafiq al-Misry: A Teacher with No Student of His) in which he introduced al-Misry's poems and explained al-Misry's literary poetry techniques. In Egypt Performance Poetry

6930-410: The very root of the act of theatre: actors cocreating the event of theatre with its spectators. Theatre - through the actor's technique, his art in which the living organism strives for higher motives - provides an opportunity for what could be called integration, the discarding of masks, the revealing of the real substance: a totality of physical and mental reactions. This opportunity must be treated in

7020-450: The voice. Grotowski's ultimate aim was to effect in the actor change and growth, transformation and rebirth in order that the actor, in turn, could precipitate a similar development in the audience. It was for this reason that Grotowski often chose to base productions on works based on ancient narratives. For he believed that they 'embodied myths and images powerful and universal enough to function as archetypes , which could penetrate beneath

7110-531: The work of both poets with live jazz. With Mark Eleveld, he has developed a podcast, "Thru the Mill with Marc Kelly Smith". https://www.directedbydavid.com/portraits Jerzy Grotowski Jerzy Marian Grotowski ( Polish: [ˈjɛʐɨ ˈmarjan grɔˈtɔfskʲi] ; 11 August 1933 – 14 January 1999) was a Polish theatre director and theorist whose innovative approaches to acting, training and theatrical production have significantly influenced theatre today. He

7200-439: The work, until he was not only the primary doer in the practice of Art as Vehicle, but also its primal leader and "director" (if such a term can be accurately used) of the performance structures created around these Afro-Caribbean vibratory songs, most significantly 'Downstairs Action' (filmed by Mercedes Gregory in 1989) and 'Action', on which work began in 1994 and continues to the present. Italian actor Mario Biagini, who joined

7290-532: Was among a small group of actors and directors, including Peter Brook and Roy Hart , who sought to explore new forms of theatrical expression without employing the spoken word. In the programme notes to the production of one of Grotowski's performances called Akropolis , of which the premiere was in October 1962, one of the performers stated: The means of verbal expression have been considerably enlarged because all means of vocal expression are used, starting from

7380-634: Was cited by members of the company as an example of a group 'total act'. The development of Apocalypsis took more than three years, beginning as a staging of Słowacki 's Samuel Zborowski and passing through a separate stage of development as a staging of the Gospels, Ewangelie (elaborated as a completed performance though never presented to audiences) before arriving to its final form. Grotowski revolutionized theatre and along with his first apprentice, Eugenio Barba , leader and founder of Odin Teatret ,

7470-523: Was hip-hop. That was the only counter-existence in the mainstream media. That was essential, and in that same way I think poetry fills a very huge void today [among] youth. And I guess I count myself among the youth. In 2012, more than 12,000 young people took part in an England-wide youth slam Shake the Dust , organized by Apples and Snakes as part of the London 2012 Festival . An Open Letter to Honey Singh ,

7560-407: Was invited by Roberto Bacci oto his theater center in Pontedera , Italy. There, he was offered an opportunity to conduct long-term research on performance without the pressure of having to show results until he was ready. Grotowski gladly accepted, taking with him three assistants from Objective Drama research (Richards, Jimenez and Slowiak) to help in founding his Italian Workcenter. Robart also led

7650-514: Was invited by the theatre critic and dramaturg Ludwik Flaszen to serve as director of the Theatre of 13 Rows. There he began to assemble a company of actors and artistic collaborators which would help him realize his unique vision. It was also there that he began to experiment with approaches to performance training, which enabled him to shape young actors. Although his methods were often contrasted to those of Konstantin Stanislavski , he admired

7740-420: Was part of Grotowski's investigation into the use of the actor's own self as the substance of performance, and his work was founded upon his belief in the ability of a human being to express physically and vocally aspects of the psyche , including those parts allegedly buried in what Carl Jung called the collective unconscious , without recourse to words. Both Grotowski and Hart compared the desired effect of

7830-539: Was soon considered to be a major success. In one of his final essays, Grotowski detailed how he worked individually with actor Ryszard Cieslak for more than a year to develop the scenes of torture and martyrdom intrinsic to the play. Grotowski's last professional production as a director was in 1969. Entitled Apocalypsis Cum Figuris, it uses texts from the Bible, this time combined with contemporary writings from authors such as T. S. Eliot and Simone Weil , this production

7920-730: Was the first complete realization of Grotowski's notion of "poor theatre." In it the company of actors (representing concentration camp prisoners) build the structure of a crematorium around the audience while acting out stories from the Bible and Greek mythology . This conceptualization had particular resonance for the audiences in Opole, as the Auschwitz concentration camp was only sixty miles away. Akropolis received much attention and could be said to have launched Grotowski's career internationally due to inventive and aggressive promotion by visiting foreign scholars and theatre professionals. A film of

8010-513: Was the only three-time IWPS champion in the history of the event. The current (2013) National Poetry Slam Team champions are Slam New Orleans (SNO), who have won the competition for the second year in a row. The current (2014) Women of the World Poetry Slam Champion was Dominique Christina. From 10 to 11 December 2016 Salzburg , Austria , held a world-record poetry slam competition (28 hours of classic slam poetry) and broke

8100-455: Was very much like a sport, and I was interested in poetry in large part because it was like the antithesis of sports. ... [I]t seemed to me like a very macho, masculine form of poetry and not at all what I was interested in." The poet Tim Clare offers a "for and against" account of the phenomenon in Slam: A Poetic Dialogue . Ironically, slam poetry movement founder Marc Smith has been critical of

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