US poet Dasha Kelly delivers stunning performance Maitisong Festival
Spira Tlhankane | Monday April 27, 2015 16:37
The U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Botswana Earl Miller introduced Kelly, who came to Botswana courtesy of the US Embassy. Ambassador Miller said they brought Kelly to inspire and educate Botswana artists. “The U.S.A promote arts and mutual understanding therefore we are proud Maitisong festival sponsors,” he said.
Ambassador Miller added that the festival had been the beacon for the arts thus this year’s theme of ‘Elevate’ was relevant and demonstrated growth in the arts industry.
Right after the introduction, Kelly came on the stage and picked up the mike to ignite the eagerly anticipated poetry hungry crowd.
Her first verses were enough to bring a moment of silence for a while and right afterwards it was all cheers. Kelly’s slam poetry is not your everyday poetry recital but the slam is more than engaging, highly interactive and the visual sounds of her lyrical words can be understood at any level of human comprehension.
Kelly appreciated her talent, in one her lines she said her body was a temple therefore it should be treated with respect. She did not leave her audience lost but she engaged them to create a mutual understanding and breach the culture gap. She briefly outlined the history of Slam Poetry in a couple of verses.
“Poetry slam was started by American poet Marc Smith at the Get Me High Lounge in Chicago 30 years ago. Random Judges were pulled out from the audience to judge performances in a numeric scale from 0-10,” she told the crowd. As the train conductor of the Slam, Kelly said the slam could not start without shedding blood in a sacrificial poem from a Poet who was not competing. To do the honours, African Slam Champion from South Africa Thabiso Mohare took the mike and acted like he was competing.
The spoken word artist who goes by the name Afurakan performed his winning poem from 3 years ago which he wrote 12 years ago. The poet who has written poems like “ordinary man” to honour the late Nelson Mandela performed his mind-blowing cypher to the crowd and it had an interesting story behind it. The slam competition kicked off, local poets joined the party to throw their best lines and five members from the audience were selected to judge every performance that followed. Next on the stage was a young man named Fifth Element with his thunderous poem entitled illusion. He was aggressive on the mike and his lyrics were as powerful as his words. Bongi followed afterwards with her love poem, and she vividly used imagery to paint a powerful picture describing her partner.