Three teams are to battle it out this weekend to be crowned Isle of Wight Flip the Script champions.
For the past six weeks, young people from across the Island have been taking part in a series of workshops run by professional spoken word artists and local poets to create performance pieces around the theme ‘horizons’. The project is funded by an Arts Council England grant for the Arts Libraries Fund.
The Island’s first ever spoken word slam event will take place on Saturday 16 November at the Anthony Minghella Theatre at Quay Arts, Newport.
The teams – Newport Youth Centre, Medina College and Sandown Youth Centre – will perform their pieces, written around the theme of ‘horizons’, in front of an invited audience.
They will be competing for individual awards and a ‘highest scoring team’ award. All the participants will go on to have their spoken word pieces recorded for inclusion in an art installation commissioned by local artist Joanne Hummel-Newell, who will be offering animation workshops in January as part of the overall Flip the Script project.
The art installation will tour libraries next Spring, showcasing both the spoken word, poetry and other artwork.
Performances will be judged by Nina Cullinane, the council’s arts development co-ordinator; Andy Walker, development librarian and Pete Hunter who is the south east area coordinator for leading performance poetry organisation, Apples and Snakes.
Nina Cullinane, said:
“The slam event is a celebration of this successful youth project which has involved the Island’s youth centres, schools and libraries. The young people have gained a huge amount by working hard with professional artists to create exciting performances with creative and powerful use of language in this art form that incorporates elements of poetry, rap and lyricism. We’re extremely proud of what they’ve achieved and aim to continue work around spoken word in the future.”
Although the Flip the Script slam event is for invited guests only, for those people interested in hearing top professionals, spoken word artists from the Apples and Snakes organisation will be performing at Quay Arts at 20:00 on Saturday 16th November. Tickets are available at the box office.
