In the meantime ....

It has been an interesting couple of days.


We took Nikki to the airport on Friday and watched her fly off to Wellington. I hear last night's Phat Grrrl Revolution went swimmingly at Happy down there. Stoked. She's heading to Dunedin on Monday - so watch out for her down there people and say hi from Miriam if you run into that crazy-intense woman from the States who I am so pleased to have had the chance to work with.


That night Murray, Christian and myself performed a set at Galatos as part of the Inhibition Exhibition. Warming up for rock bands this time - which I think may actually be more intimidating than performing in between them. But we did it and we did it good. Was a wicked venue to play, great little stage. Hope to do something else there down the track.



Murray, Me and Christian chill out pre-show.















Murray and Christian














Me doing Supported Accomodation. That shut them up.

***

Almost simultaneously, as Nikki would have been rocking her performance out down in Welly last night, Christian and I were performing with Texture and a bunch of other Auckland Fringe performers as part of Bang Bang Caravel at Cross Street Studios. They had erected a childhood-fort-like tent constructed out of sheets and pieces of fabric, which filled the entire gallery from wall to wall, floor to ceiling, and the whole evening's performances took place in there - the audience gathered around on the floor like people around a camp fire, a small stage and curtain set up at one end, lights and a disco ball.



Texture performing at Bang Bang Caravel.

***

This blog is about something else though. I have just returned from the first ever live Dirty Words Sessions at Thirsty Dog and WOW. It was vastly underattended, because clearly some people take a while to get hooked onto a good thing. And oh my this is a good thing. Shane Hollands, beloved founder of The Literatti, started this one up, an off-shoot of his Fleet Fm show 'Dirty Words with Shane Hollands'. What you have is a two-piece 'house' jazz band, and a couple of booked poets. The band improvises music and the poets run with it in whatever way they see fit.



The coin toss decides who's gonna go first while the musicians warm up.















Christian gets going.









Christian Jensen and Texture were the guest poets. Shane performed. There were also opportunities for open mic, and a bunch of other poets who were there, myself and Mr. Murray Lee included, jumped up and performed with the band as well. Anna Kaye cranked out a really different piece for her, and I loved it - I'm calling it after it's repeated refrain "I'm sick of this shit". A piece from the Kerouac Effect I do believe. And Daniel Larsen performed stunningly, he's really owning his stuff now, I love it. I keep saying that. But good things are happening in our world of words and performance these days.

Texture turns prose into jazz beat poetry on the fly.


















Daniel synchs up with the musicians.








Performing unrehearsed with a live band is exhilerating - both to watch and to do. Something about boundaries is erased and avenues of what to do with the words open up before you. You just have to grab them as they come. No second guessing. It's a series of Yoda moments really. There is no think, only do or do not.

Keep an eye out for Dirty Words Sessions number 2 which is on April 12th I think - it will be a sunday. Make sure not to miss it. An amazing experience to be part of. One day this event is going to be a big part of our poetry scene up here, I'm so excited to have been at the first one. Hopefully I'll get to join Christian as one of the booked poets there oneday soon.