HEKATE – a performance developed for @womenofwords for their MAIDEN / MOTHER /CRONE project is now live on my youtube channel. Best watched when you have a bit of down time. Get yourself a drink. Dim the lights. https://youtu.be/ylPQFKflt5Y
I can’t wait to be doing live-live events again. Here is an article aabout what I have learnt from a year of performing at home for @AdvantagesofAge. You can read the short article here:
Promo video of ‘Ode to the night flaneur’. I will be performing these and other poems at my first post lockdown socially distanced event, ‘At the edge of uncertainty’, with long time collaborator Henni Linnea. Sunday 6th September. Tkts links below.
Like everyone else on the planet, I am trying to wrap my head around lockdown. Specifically, what it means to be an intimate poetry performer under lockdown and thinking about, when lockdown ends, how social distancing might effect my work. Last year, this time, I was writing up research for a paper on money exchange and performing intimate poetry. This year, I am having to radically rethink ways in which I can perform intimacy. Last night I participated in the 4th Poetry Brothel live-stream ‘Streamers and Dreamers’, an amazing event bringing together performers from Mexico (they didn’t say which city!), New Mexico, Valpariaso, New York, Los Angeles, London and Dublin. The Poetry Brothel was started in New York by Stephanie Singer and Nicholas Adamski eleven years ago and has taken off and been taken up as an idea by poets looking for alternative ways to present poetry to audiences. As Nicholas said last night, ‘There’s a PB in any almost any interesting city in the world’. This is a bit of an exaggeration, but the poetry brothel is unique in so far as it represents an international family of poets with shared interests in performing intimacy. I have participated in European International Brothels before, but this was a rare occasion to have performers all situated geographically separately, come together in a shared, performative, virtual space.
The Poetry Society of New York, to which the Poetry Brothel New York is aligned, has been incredibly pro-active about sustaining performances and training during lockdown. As well as many poetry workshops, they have created a ‘poetry live-stream page’ where you can book private poetry readings.
Here’s my link to ‘Bibi Synthe’, the name that I perform as in the PB.
This raises interesting possibilities for me. As well as an interest in multi-sensory work and 1-2-1 performance, I also interested in participative performance. My show about dating ‘Gimme, Gimme, Gimme More Love’, used anonymous live-chat in the staged space to allow the audience to participate and interact with each other via anonymous ‘confessional’ anecdotes, prompted by questions asked during the live performance. The live-chat was projected on the screen during the performance and audience anonymity was secured through having audience log into chat under ‘nom-de-plumes’. The live-chat not only enhanced the collective story-telling capacity, but also led to audience members providing prompts for other audience members, brought onto stage as performers, for an improvisational finale.
So far, in lockdown, I have participated in numerous online events: poetry workshops, collaborative writing, parties, meetings and even some voice-over directing. People are begin to complain of ‘zoom fatigue’. The two performance events I have participated in have both been really well managed using zoom as the ‘green room’ for artists and going out live on youtube and facebook to a wide audience, but what they have lacked is the kind of audience inter-activity that really interests me. What I am really looking forward to is developing deeply intimate experiences online as 1-2-1 or small group performances.
The question of intimacy is easily solved in terms of creating 1-2-1 readings via zoom, googlechats even fb live. My friend Moya De Feyter was part of a wonderful project in Belgium where people could ‘call up poets’ on a free phone service. What is more difficult is solving sensory elements beyond the visual and the auditory. In my private 1-2-1 readings, I often use blindfolds, sensation and olfactory triggers. While digital technology is readily available to reach people, many of us are actually feeling sensorially deprived. As we discussed in the poetry parlour (the PB digital after-party), many of us are feeling touch deprived. It is that curious thing, I guess, that unlike the other senses, it is almost impossible to recapture the sense of being touched by someone else. I am intrigued to see how one can build multi-sensory interactions on digital platforms. What stimuli can we provide? What prompts will be serve as a multi-sensory portal? How can we transcend the limits of the digital boundaries to create less artificial and more sensory work?
About a week before official lockdown in the UK, I was beginning to notice that as many large theatres and venues around the world were closing, many companies where offering streamed events and many musicians and performers I knew who had had their livelihoods suddenly cut off at the knees, were live-streaming gigs. I was losing track of all the wonderful things that were on offer, so I started a page called, ‘solaceforthehomebound’, where people post either links to live events, or live-feeds directly onto the page. You can find the link here. https://www.facebook.com/groups/2580882608850793/
In the meantime, it has been fun creating a pop-up installation space for live performances. Here is a link to me performing on-line at Matt Fleming’s ‘Music & Words Club: Session 48.
My section starts at 2:44:14
You can contact me through this page, or via my fb page @debrawatsonperformanceandpoetry
I’ve been a bit slack about insta updates in the past few months, but I may do a some live readings there too. insta debra.watson
Stay safe everyone. I can’t wait to be able to meet up with people in meat space and have the largest, groupiest, huggiest, flesh-piles.
So – June/July sets to be busy. It has been a wild few months. The chapbook is out (more details below) and launched on May 9th. There are now 70/150 limited edition copies left which you can purchase directly from me (send me a message)or at one of these events where I will be performing/reading from the collection.
Dates for your diary June/July:
June 15th – London Fetish Film Festival – 8pm. Poetry performance with Hen Ni Linnea on violin. Details to follow. You can purchase day or 3 day passes for the Festival at The Hen and Chickens Theatre, London.
June 22nd – Poetry Brothel London – Midsummer Ball at the Kings Head Private Members Club. This event focuses on Poetry as a decadent indulgence. We have ‘open readings’ where poets and musicians perform. I will be working with Hen Ni Linnea on the open performances. The gem of the night is purchasing private readings from the poets. (It’s not called a Poetry Brothel for nothing!). It’s a beautiful, sensual and multi-sensory experience in the lush surrounds of a private members club.
June 27th – Advantages of Age hosts 6 poets over 50 at the Poetry Cafe in Covent Garden. It’s a fabulous line-up of poets, curated by the marvellous Rose Rouse. The Poetry Cafe hosts wonderful events – in a lovely, cosy, Covent Garden room.
July 6th – The Crimson Word will be performing 1-2-1 intimate readings at a special Mansion Party in Brighton. Details to follow. Follow our page for updates.
July 7th – The Bloody Poets: From Darkness with Hen Ni Linnea. This is a great night of more experimental ways of presenting poetry and music, curated by the great Mad Pirvan. At SET in Dalston. It’s a great line up.
The Launch Event:
The ‘Laments & Incantations’ chapbook launched on May 9th with my music partner Hen Ni Linnea. We were joined by Machig de Valence Matig launching her first collection, ‘Your Body, My Poem’. It was a beautiful event with music and readings from some of my favourite artists. Poetry readings from Katie Haworth and Tom Bland and music by Picturepoems and Gabi Garbutt. It was a collaborative affair – and it was wonderful being joined on some poems by Picturepoems and Gabi Garbutt. It really elevated the poems to have other musicians work with us. Of the 150 limited edition copies, I know have 70 left, which you can either buy directly from me or at events at which I am performing. Copies are £10 per book plus p+p Send me a message or follow my fb page for news of events. https://www.facebook.com/debrawatsonperformanceandpoetry
Laments and Incantations – photo by Leif Sebastien taken on Hampstead Heath, summer 2018
In the past 2yrs I have been loosely writing around a theme called ‘Laments and Incantations’ for performance events. I am now running a ‘GoFundMe’ campaign to raise money to bring out a limited edition chapbook of 150 signed and numbered copies with stunning original photo by Leif Sebastien.
The poems printed will all have been written and performed for at either The Poetry Brothel London, The Bloody Poets or The Crimson Word and performed at various open mic nights. They are not all the poems written in this period, just a short collection selected by me and refinded by editor Katie Haworth, It
£10 will get you a copy of the book in the UK. Please add p+p if you are donating from elsewhere.
Artic Trixie and Bibi Synthe at The Poetry Brothel London
pic credit: The Burly Photographer
So, Nov! Nov! A brand new Poetry Brothel is launching in Hastings on 11/11/21! We are having a ‘soft launch’ Salon type event that introduces people to The Poetry Brothel is advance of a bigger event in 2022 where we will resume private, 1-2-1 readings.
The ensemble for this show is wonderful with Poetry Brothel regulars, Hen ni Linnea, Naomi Wood, Paul Shine and I, joined by Jude Montagu (words and music) and Aflo.thepoet. A am beyond delight to be dipping my toe back into the intimate poetry readings.
I am delighted to that we are finally coming out of lockdown and starting to run events again. It has been ages since I have performed at The Poetry Brothel and I have decided to start one in Hastings.
The Poetry Brothel is an immersive poetry event, modelled on fin-de-siècle bordellos. It was started in the New York by Stephanie Berger and Nicholas Adamski as a way or revitalising the poetry scene and bringing poetry out of academia, classrooms and open mics. Poetry Brothels have sprung up all over the world. The Poetry Brothel London was started in London by Gabriel Moreno and Jeyda Yagiz and The Poetry Brothel Hastings will be only the second in the UK. The PB London Brothel took over a number of different spaces; always keeping the mix of burlesque, magic, music and poetry and has been a home for poetry misfits and rebels for the past 5 yrs. Even though our theatres have been dark, the Poetry Brothel New York continued to run zoom events and myself and Naomi Wood met online at a couple, performing in the de-terrorialised space in the early hours to perform at the New York or International Brothels.
The launch of the Hastings Brothel is a ‘soft launch’; we will not be doing 1-2-1 or intimate readings yet. We are still finding our feet and building up an audience for a larger event.
I am wildly excited to have Naomi Wood, Henni Linnea, Paul Shine, Jude Montagu and Aflo the Poet join us for this event. Please go to the fb event page to find out more about the performers.
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Delighted that ‘Everyday an Apocalypse’ has been awarded a merit award for audience impact at the Nature without Borders International Film Festival (NWBIFF). Massive thanks to Mad Pirvan who initiated the project, with original music by Alicia Macanas.
Henni Saarela and I performed the poem with violin to the Alicia’s soundtrack at our first live performance since September 2020 at ‘The Catastrophe Cabaret’ – with Engineers of Desire and we are excited to add this to our repertoire. We can’t wait to be seeing you all live again. We are available for bookings! Contact form is on the home page.
A celebration of the crone archetype, HEKATE was commissioned by Women of Words for a live online performance in March 2021. It was a wonderful process and I am happy o be premiering a video of the performance on Tuesday 27/04/2021 at 8.00pm BST.
Music by Henni Saarela. Filmed live by Immo Horn.
The pandemic has been seriously challenging for live performers, artists and musicians. Please consider donating the price of a coffee (or a cocktail) to my paypal pool for this project https://paypal.me/pools/c/8yU0vnz8TW.
I am also available for intimate 1-2-1 readings of my work on zoom, skype, whatsapp or telephone. The cost is £10 for 10min for a 1-2-1 reading. Please get it touch via the comments page.
When lockdown ended last summer, Mad Pirvan and I visited a mutual friend in Wales. On our last day there, we had an early morning shoot at Dolbadarn Castle. It is more of a tower really. A beautiful old wreck. I used pictures from the shoot as a prompt, to write ‘Everyday an Apocalypse’. Mad gave the recording to Alicia Macanas, who came up with a gorgeous, haunting score. It premieres on youtube Tues 19 Jan, 2021 8pm. Hit subscribe for notification.
Last summer, when lockdown ended, I visited Llanberis with Mad Pirvan. On the last day, we managed to go out in the morning and do some filming at the old Tower. Beautiful location. I used the pictures Mad took as a prompt to write an eco-poem. I guess, it is not the most cheery of poems. Mad gave a sound recording to our friend Alicia Macanas and I couldn’t be happier with the result. I love the dark edges of it. Premiering on my youtube channel Tues 19/01/2021 8pm GMT.
Debra Watson 