The post Spoken Word: Episode 51: Laura Fisher; Why Not Believe in Everything?-Melbourne Fringe Festival, 2024. appeared first on Spoken Word.

Phoebe is featuring at a very special event this week for pride.

Phoebe Greaves is an emerging poet and curator in Naarm, and current host of Crockpot Poetry. In her writing, she considers questions of connection, ephemera, and bodily experience. In addition to poetry, Phoebe debuted her first textile-based group exhibition at Unassigned Gallery titled ‘Thread of my Body, Thread of my Bed’ in February of 2024. As host of Crockpot Poetry at Unassigned Gallery, Phoebe curates a monthly line-up of poets and musicians, as well as a free open mic section.

The post Spoken Word: Episode 45: Phoebe Greaves, Poetry for Pride; Special Double Episode appeared first on Spoken Word.

This week on Spoken Word we were joined by a personal friend and mentor of mine, Sass Pinci as we discussed Queer representation in media, Queer parenting, Arts funding and so much more.

Sass is a Melbourne based Actor, Singer, Voice Over Artist, Musician and Vocal Coach.
With ranging credits in theater, film, voice over and live performance, she is a trained and versatile performer and composer.

After studying classical voice with Brian Hansford at The University of Melbourne, Sass spent many years teaching vocal technique and is a passionate advocate for vocal health.

After completing the Full Time program at Howard Fine Acting Studio, LA’s David Coury took Sass under his mentorship to teach his world class vocal program at Howard Fine Australia.

Sass Pinci is a Melbourne based Actor, Singer, Voice Over Artist, Musician and Vocal Coach and a graduate of the Howard Fine Acting Studio Australia full time program.

With wide-ranging credits in theatre, film, voice over and live performance, including singing the opening theme for The Disney Channel’s Squeak & Boo, as well as regular voice over work and working in Melbourne radio for the Austero Network, she is a trained and versatile performer and composer.

After studying classical voice with Brian Hansford at The University of Melbourne, Sass spent many years teaching vocal technique and is a passionate advocate for vocal health.

After her work with him as part of her training at HFAS, LA’s leading voice coach, David Coury, took Sass under his mentorship to teach his world class vocal program at Howard Fine Acting Studio Australia, where she is currently on faculty.

Sass is best known for her numerous roles in Incognita projects, both in front of and behind the scenes – playing “Abbey” in the moved reading of Chasing Pegasus (a play in ten chords) in 2019 and “Mark Antony” in Shakespeare Republic: #AllTheWebsAStage (The Lockdown Chronicles) in 2020, as well as being the Sound Designer for the Walking Shadows series. Sass also played “Elizabeth Grey” in Dark Arcadia, as well as taking on the roles of Producer and Sound Editor, and is also composing and performing the main song for the series.

More information:
www.imdb.com/name/nm11797093/

Director/Producer/Composer, Sass Pinci

https://allthewebsastage.com/the-ensemble/sass-pinci/

Useful links:

https://soundcloud.com/sass-pinci/bitch

The post Spoken Word: Episode 39: Sass Pinci: On Queerness: Queer Representation in Mainstream media, Queer Parenting. appeared first on Spoken Word.

Charaf, Meena and James discussed everything from poetry to religion, to diversity and inclusivity  in the Arts, video game music, how different cultures share grief, cultural diaspora and so much more.

Aza (Arabic colloq: wake) is a powerful, nuanced portrait of migrant loss. Spoken word theater meets mourning ritual, it takes us on the grieving journeys of four artists as they grapple with what it means to lose a loved one back home.

Meet Charaf, Parminder, Thabani and Farah. They all live in Naarm, all write poetry and all have had to grieve a family member from a homeland someplace else. Together, they embark on an honest voyage through a grief as ancestral as it is foreign. From longing and guilt, to curiosity and pride, they will venture into the breadth of emotion in their migrant and diasporic mourning.

Aza is where they come together to be witnessed in the diversity in their grief. It is where they come together to heal, and to be healed.

In 50 minutes of vulnerable and sincere storytelling, they will move through the motions of their loss and attempt to answer the question: how does grief change when it is experienced in the immigrant diaspora, and how does it stay the same?

This project received Cash to Create and Cash for Equity through the Fringe Fund, as part of Radical Access. 

F

CHARAF TEE
Charaf Tartoussi is a middle-eastern-muslim writer and performance poet. Their work can be found in publications including Cordite and the upcoming SBS emerging writers anthology. Founder of griffin-speak: a spoken word event that championed the voices of POC  in and around Melbourne from 2016 to 2022 and creative producer of Slamalamadingdong since the beginning of 2020, creating space for creative storytelling and artistic expression at the core of their practice. As a performer,  they have featured in various festivals and events around the country, and are currently working on producing their first collaborative stage show: Aza (wake): stories of grief in diaspora. Meena Shamaly is a composer, musician, poet, and radio presenter. As a composer, his work centres around creating music for stories, through the mediums of film, video games, and theatre. As a songwriter and poet, he tells stories of hope, justice, faith, and reasons to love and laugh. He also collaborates with other poets and songwriters in creating stories together, and helps produce and arrange their work to highlight all the best aspects of their art. 

Meena is one of the creative producers of Slamalamadingdong, Melbourne’s premier poetry slam. He runs workshops in poetry and music, since he is as passionate about igniting and providing space for the creativity of others as he is about creating his own art. 

Additionally, Meena is the host of the Game Show on ABC Classic FM, where he presents and speaks on the diverse and beautiful music of video games each week to a national Australian (and online global) audience. 

For Facebook event:

https://fb.me/e/13Gah4vsy 

Purchase tickets:

https://melbournefringe.com.au/event/aza-stories-of-grief-in-diaspora/

The post Spoken Word: Ep. 30: Charaf Tartoussi, Meena Shamaly; Aza: Stories of Grief in Diaspora appeared first on Spoken Word.

James and Julie discuss sexuality, orientation, personal history, religion, academia, writing and so much more. An engaging interview about a very engaging and empowering performer, discussing their work and their new show opening on the 18th of September.

Is she still around? … still not acting her age and dressing inappropriately?

Julie Peters  (ex-ABC & Port Melbourne resident)  goes through her photo archive and wardrobe, sings, and chats with people she met and never did – Macbeth’s witches, her younger self, teachers, colleagues, movie stars, heroines, cowboys, fairies, friends and bullies – to wonder why we have gender, trans, football, religion, discrimination and the sausage sizzle.

Or is Julie just annoyed that not enough people have read her PhD dissertation and so has tried to summarize it as standup sociology to make it more approachable?

Julie Peters goes through her photo archive and wardrobe, sings, and chats with people she met and never did – Macbeth’s witches, her younger self, teachers, colleagues, movie stars, heroines, cowboys, fairies, friends and bullies – to wonder why we have gender, trans, football, religion, discrimination and the sausage sizzle.

Bookings:  https://thebutterflyclub.com/show/mutton-is-the-new-lamb-a-trans-de-mythology

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