LINKS HALL PRESENTS
Calisthenics for Shrapnel
November 2010 - December 2010
Curated by Links Hall Artistic Associate Marty McConnell
November 11 - 13
December 9 - 11
Fri & Sat at 8pm/ Sun at 7pm
Tickets are $15/$12 Online/$10
Buy Tickets Now: November / December
Marty McConnell
November 11 - 13
December 9 - 11
CALISTHENICS FOR SHRAPNEL is a two-weekend festival offering audiences and performers the opportunity to "work it out" over two of the most volatile issues in our lives and our world. Through poetry/spoken word, humor, movement and sound, CRUSH (November 12-14 HEADLINED BY DOROTHY ALLISON) confronts topics relating to gender and sexuality, while SMASH (December 10-12 HEADLINED BY PATRICK ROSAL) brings to stage the realms of race and class and their many intersections and points of impact.
Each weekend, a poet esteemed for work in print, another for work in performance, a youth poet, and an all-ages slam bring the intensity, communal, high energy, and highly competitive world of the rapidly evolving poetry slam to Links Hall in rapid fire world duels that break through each individual audience members separate peace.
ABOUT THE CURATOR
Marty McConnell appeared twice on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, is currently a member of her seventh National Poetry Slam team, received her MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College, and travels the country regularly performing and leading workshops with youth and adults. For nearly a decade, she co-curated the flagship reading series of the New York City-based louderARTS Project. She returned to Chicago in 2009 to create Vox Ferus, an organization dedicated to empowering and energizing individuals and communities through the written and spoken word. Her work is broadly published in journals and anthologies including Word Warriors: 35 Women Leaders in the Spoken Word Movement, Spoken Word Revolution, Salt Hill Review, Rattapallax, Fourteen Hills,and Rattle.
Dorothy Allison grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, the first child of a fifteen-year-old unwed mother who worked as a waitress.
Now living in Northern California with her partner Alix and her teenage son, Wolf Michael, she describes herself as a feminist,
a working class story teller, a Southern expatriate, a sometime poet and a happily born-again Californian.
The first member of her family to graduate from high school, Allison attended Florida Presbyterian college on a National Merit Scholarship and studied anthropology at the New School for Social Research.
An award winning editor for Quest, Conditions, and Outlook—early feminist and Lesbian & Gay journals, Allison's chapbook of poetry,
The Women Who Hate Me, was published with Long Haul Press in 1983. Her short story collection, Trash (1988) was published by Firebrand Books.Trash won two Lambda Literary Awards and the American Library Association Prize for Lesbian and Gay Writing.
Allison received mainstream recognition with her novel Bastard Out of Carolina, (1992) a finalist for the 1992 National Book Award.
The novel won the Ferro Grumley prize, an ALA Award for Lesbian and Gay Writing, became a best seller, and an award-winning movie.
It has been translated into more than a dozen languages.
Cavedweller (1998) became a national bestseller, NY Times Notable book of the year, finalist for the Lillian Smith prize, and an ALA prize winner.
Adapted for the stage by Kate Moira Ryan, the play was directed by Michael Greif, and featured music by Hedwig composer, Stephen Trask.In 2003, Lisa Cholendenko directed a movie version featuring Krya Sedwick.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 12
8 p.m.
The Calisthenics for Shrapnel Festival presents
Flight: Variety, a sampling of performance celebrating and exploring aspects of gender and sexuality.
In wine tasting, a "flight" is an array of variations for the purpose of sampling and comparison. In our festival's Talent Flight, performers will line up to form a "tasting night" of exciting performance exploring the topics at hand.
hosted by Avery R. Young
featuring:
* burlesque by Girlie-Q, Chicago's longest-running burlesque and variety troupe
* comedy by the hilarious Brendan McGowan
* Marty McConnell with band John Condron and the Benefit: poetry and music
* spoken word by poet/storyteller Jeanne Theresa Newman
* performance by drag king superstar poet K. Bradford
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 13
8 p.m.
The Calisthenics for Shrapnel Festival presents
Elastic Collision: a night of poetry and dialogue around gender and sexuality
featuring Dorothy Allison and Tristan Silverman
Elastic Collision brings together a poet esteemed for her/his work in print, a poet highly regarded for her/his work in performance, and a youth poet for dialogue in verse and conversation. In physics, an elastic collision is one in which equal forces meet and no kinetic energy is lost -- in Elastic Collision, the worlds of academia and performance meet and fuse, intersecting with and investing that energy in the next generation of poets.
hosted by Marty McConnell
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 14
7 p.m.
The Calisthenics for Shrapnel Festival presents
an all-ages THEME SLAM on gender and sexuality
$50 cash prize!
Come share your work relating to gender and sexuality! In this live performance poetry competition, poets will sign up to be judged by random audience members. Over three rounds, including one original poem without prop or costume, one requiring the use of a prop or costume, one requiring the poet to cover someone else's poem, competitors will vie for prizes including best cover poem, best use of prop/costume, and biggest risk taken on stage; in addition, the poet receiving the highest cumulative score from the judges at the end of the night will receive a $50 CASH PRIZE! Poets not adhering to the theme will be disqualified by audience vote if challenged by a judge or audience member.
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