On June 27, the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs and Denver Poet Laureate Chris Ransick will partner with Café Nuba and Let Us Rise in Café Nuba’s annual celebration of lyrical activism at Vision Slam, highlighting 15 of Colorado’s most visionary poets. The event will take place on Friday, June 27, 2008, from approximately 9:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. at the historic Roxy Theater, 2549 Welton St. in Five Points. This is a free event; a suggested donation of $10 will support the BLAM Youth Program at Pan African Arts Society.
Poets will share their hopes and aspirations for a better local community, a new America and global sustainability in three rounds of word power, and will compete for props and $500 in prize money. In addition, co-host for the evening, Denver Poet Laureate Chris Ransick, will present on the local poetry scene and his latest works.
WHAT: Vision Slam featuring Denver Poet Laureate Chris Ransick, Yuzo Nieto (Boulder, CO) and Huggy Bear (Tampa, FL)
WHO: Local “spitters”; national champion slam poets from the SlamNuba and Mercury Café Teams, including Panama Soweto, Jen Rinaldi, Ken Arkind, Bobby LeFebre and others; Magnet Mafia (artists Matt Feeney and Jay Paul Apodaca); soulful sounds from D.J. S.D. (a.k.a. Nate Williams); and guest emcee, Rukus.
WHEN: Friday, June 27, 2008, from approximately 9:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m.
WHERE: Roxy Theater, 2549 Welton St., Denver (Five Points neighborhood)
The program for the evening is as follows:
9:00 p.m. Doors open, D.J. set
9:25 p.m. Micro-cinema: “10 Days in Africa” (Director Regi Allen)
10:00 p.m. Open Mic
10:20 p.m. Featured Poet: Denver Poet Laureate Chris Ransick
10:45 p.m. Featured Poet: Yuzo Nieto (Boulder, CO)
11:00 p.m. Featured Poet: Huggy Bear (Tampa, FL)
11:15 p.m. Vision Slam featuring 15 poets, three rounds (three-minute, two-minute w/elimination and four-minute final round) and $500 in prize money
Vision Slam is inspired and sponsored in part by Let Us Rise, a new Colorado-based community seeking to bring people, nonprofits, congregations, clubs, businesses and unions together to create a “People’s Platform,” a positive vision of the society we yearn for. Poems from the Vision Slam will be filmed and uploaded to www.letusrise.org and will become part of the campaign. Let Us Rise Convener Kris Abrams said, “We’re all very good at articulating what’s wrong with the world. But, can we give voice to the world we want to see? At Vision Slam, poets will be showing us the way.”
Café Nuba is renowned for its provocative and uncensored analysis of urban society and its various “isms”. It has hosted some of the most celebrated poets and media activists of our time, including Amy Goodman, Oscar Brown, Jr., Amiri Baraka, Suheir Hammad and Melvin VanPeebles, to name a few.
Special thanks to Ashara Ekundyo, BluBlak Media, LLC and the volunteer staff of the Pan African Arts Society, DeQuan Mack and Kris Abrams of Let Us Rise, KGNU and Little Voice Productions for their help with the evening’s events.
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