"There were women, they were there, I knew them, their families put them in institutions,they were given electric shock. In the '50s if you were male you could be a rebel, but if you were female your families had you locked up. There were cases, I knew them, someday someone will write about them."

(Gregory Corso)

As a living space to research, thinking, creation and its difussion, the Es Baluard Observatori becomes this summer a work residence for Beat Attitude!, a multilingual creation (English, Spanish, French) based on the life and work of the Generació Beat forgotten women poets.

Based on the life and work of Elise Cowen, Joanne Kyger, Lenore Kandel, Diane di Prima, Denise Levertov, ruth weiss, Janine Pommy Vega, Hettie Jones y Joyce Johnson amongst others, the actors behind Beat Attitude! will offer an heterogeneous production about the life and work of the female writers of the Beat Generation, based on the work of three resident poets (Annalisa Marí Pegrum, Saiban and Irene la Sen) and a multimedia artist (Man_Hauser).

The Beat Generation is one constitutes the beginning of a movement which strives to return to the oral tradition. Beat poems were meant to be read aloud: Beat poets often favored a grand, self dramatizing style that they often favoured in smoke-filled cafés and bars, as well as improvising in true beat-style with jazz. This is why the Beat Generation still remains one of the most evident influences for slam poetry, a movement which was also born in the United States, only thirty years later.

Rimbaud was one of the first beats, later Ginsberg and Kerouac were world-renowned becoming nomads and making poetry a protest act in against the society they had to live. But  what about women? Where were them? The journeys of Keroauc, Cassady and Ginsberg have been deeply told in a lot of poetry and narrative works but were also women there? And if it's so, did they write?

This musical, visual and poetical creation intends to revive the forgotten female poets of the Beat Generation through poetry slam, a movement which aims to become its heir, spreading the love for the oral tradition to redefine the Beat Generation and the role of women in it. 

In this multilingual and interactive performance we will offer new texts based which will try to explain the historical context and the story of the Beat Generation, focusing on the female writers and their work. Our aim is therefore to redefine the Beat Generation and to bring them back to life through music, multimedia and words.

Regarding multimedia, the interaction will consist of two parts: on the one hand, we will generate text (poetry lines or tags) which we will project according to the different voice intensities, through “Pure data”. Moreover, we will generate sound through tracking video as well as projecting the poets’ movements in what will become an eclectic and heterogeneous poetry performance.

Download exhibition brochure 

Artistic Creation by Slam Tribu Reims, Alg-A Lab and Poetry Slam Mallorca.

Actors / Music / Multimedia:
   

• Tobias Kunze (slam creation; German voice) 
• Annalisa Marí Pegrum (slam production; English voice)
• Brice Verdure (multimedia production)
• Irene la Sen (slam production; English voice)
• Sébastien Gavignet (slam production; English voice)
• Man_Hauser (multimedia production)

In collaboration with:

Artistic creation conceived as part of the Biennale internationale de poésie: Les Ailleurs. (Poetry Festival dedicated to Rimbaud in Charleville, the city where he was born).

Co-produced by the City Council of Charleville-Mézières, the City Council of Reims, Reims’ Opéra, Reims Scènes d'Europe, Slam Tribu, Poetry Slam Mallorca, Alg-A Lab.

With the support of DRAC Champagne Ardenne, the Conseil Régional de Champagne Ardenne, and the Conseil Général de la Marne, Es Baluard Museu d’Art Modern i Contemporani de Palma.

Artist-In-Residence  
 

• Slam Poetry Artist-In-Residence: Es Baluard Museu d’Art Modern i Contemporani (Palma, Mallorca) 29 July- 2 August.
• Scenic Creation Residence: Charleville Mézières (France) 18 – 20 October 2014.

The Female Poets of The Beat Generation

Denise Levertov (1923-1997), ruth weiss (1928-), Lenore Kandel (1932-2009), Elise Cowen (1933-1962), Diane di Prima (1934-), Mary Norbert Körte (1934-) , Hettie Jones (1934-), Joanne Kyger (1934-), Janine Pommy Vega (1942-2010), Anne Waldman (1945-) (…)
 
ORGANIZED BY:

WITH THE COLLABORATION OF: