GIMC poetry to bring more spoken word creativity
Spira Tlhankane | Wednesday July 12, 2017 18:00
Speaking to Showbiz in an interview, Thapelo Pabalinga of GIMC said after bringing South Africa’s Lebos Mashile last year, this time around their foreign poet will be Mama Kay from the USA. “We position it as the best spoken word event in Botswana. We are always about quality performances from local and international poets. It is different in that it brings together poets of different styles, music and cultural ensembles all in one evening. The amount of creativity on the night is always mind boggling, pleasant to see,” he said.
Spoken word poetry is one of the most powerful platforms poets use to voice their thoughts and last year the event was no short of that with a youthful lineup of Juby Peacock, Poetess Phopho, Goitse Kgaswane and Morwa Motsamai among others.
Pabalinga said in order to engage upcoming poets in this event they have always had a fusion of known poets and upcoming ones so that they give upcoming poets a chance to break in. “GIMC on average enlists 70% known and established artists and 30% for green field artists.
We are passionate about developing upcoming talent,” he highlighted. He added that they will also host free workshops for every genre not just for poets. Pabalinga said poetry can never reach the same levels of hype as does the festival and jazz but assured the poetry lovers that they will give it their all when it comes to production, selection and execution.
“Other events are much bigger and poetry as a genre can never surpass music. This is the case the world over and it is evident from previous years as well, no show is ever half done,” he acknowledged. While English spoken word poets dominate the event, Pabalinga said they do have Setswana poets as well.
“This year we have listed Barolong Seboni. In the previous years we have had Mr Phumaphi, Mr Sefako and others. We are still working on having more so it balances out nicely,” he said. GIMC 2017 will be held from August 26 to September 2, 2017, and it also includes comedy, jazz, music festival, theatre and choral events.