Werk! A Poetry & Performance Bootcamp

Werk! A Poetry Performance Workshop

Bi-monthly starring in February | 2pm - 5pm | $25 per session

Feb 23, April 27, Jun 22, Aug 24, Oct 26, Dec 7

Hayti Heritage Center

804 Old Fayetteville St

Durham, NC 27701

Spoken Word is the art of performance poetry. It can be emotional, inspirational, educational, and as creative and expressive as your imagination. It can also be a tool for healing and growth. How you bring your words to life on stage is about how prepared you are to deliver them. It combines the skill of oration with the subtle nuance of theatre and improvisation. Voice projection, tone, stance, and body movement are important. So is an understanding of oratory tools such as parsing, parallelism, and pace. Whether you are reading at an open mic, featuring at an event, or competing in a slam, the goal for the poet is the same. Deliver your message in a way that engages the listener, capturing their attention for the duration of your poem. This workshop prepares participants to do so. It discusses technique, individual voice, and presence. It also provides the participant with an understanding of the art form and a set of tools to use in sharing their words with an audience. Through various activities this workshop seeks to give its participants confidence in presenting their works.

Each participant is required to come with 1-2 poems. It doesn’t matter how long or short the poem is. Having a poem that is memorized allows for the focus to be on performance elements. You can also bring work in progress poems not memorized, but the feedback will be about things to consider as you memorize it. There will be different feedback once the poem is memorized. Each poem (memorized and not) should be brought in print also (2 copies).

This workshop is led by award winning poet and performance artist Dasan Ahanu. Dasan has been coaching poets in poetry performance and poetry slam since 2005.