New spoken word event on the cards
Dumisani Ncube | Tuesday January 16, 2018 13:00
The event is scheduled to launch on January 27, 2018, at the newly opened restaurant and bar, Lokpel. Seasoned spoken word artist Mandisa ‘Josiah King’ Mabutho will headline the event staging her first solo performance for the first time in three years.
“This is not necessarily a poetry event but a spoken word event because it is broad. It covers poetry, book reading and story telling. It is dedicated for spoken word lovers and enthusiasts,” Mabutho who is also a founding member of Gilbert’s House, said.
Apart from the spoken word activities at the event, Mabutho stated that there will be a sale and exhibition of books written by Botswana authors.
“We urging local authors to get in touch with us so they can set up a stall during the event to exhibit and sell their books. Also this is a very exclusive event that will accommodate not more than 50 people in the audience”.
The authors can get in touch with the Gilbert’s House on their Facebook page of the same name.
She stated that the plan is to host the event once every two months with the first one being a pilot event to see how they can handle the upcoming events.
With this being Mabutho’s first solo performance in a long time she stated that she has new material to offer that she has been compiling over the years. She last staged a solo performance at Botswanacraft Marketing three years ago.
“There is a lot of new material that I will be sharing with a few old pieces. Hopefully I will be compiling an anthology in the foreseeable future,” the spoken word artist, who is celebrating 10 years in the industry having her debut as a poet at Exodus Live Poetry, said.
If all goes well the event will host a number of spoken word artists that are upcoming and established. At the moment the country has young and energetic poets such as Makgosi Tau, Gomolemo Motsamai, Edwin Moroka and Kgotla Molefe who have proven to be legit.