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Het Ontstaan En De Evolutie Van Poetry Slams in New York City

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Het Ontstaan En De Evolutie Van Poetry Slams in New York City Academiejaar 2009 – 2010 ‘The points are not the point: the point is the poetry’ Het ontstaan en de evolutie van poetry slams in New York City Promotor: Prof. Dr. Jürgen Pieters Verhandeling voorgelegd aan de Faculteit Letteren en Wijsbegeerte voor het verkrijgen van de graad van Master in de Vergelijkende Moderne Letterkunde door Annelore Smits 1 Inhoud 0. Inleiding ..................................................................................................................................................... 5 1.Een nieuw fenomeen: een korte introductie tot poetry slams .................................................................. 7 1.1 De populaire verscultuur ......................................................................................................................... 7 1.2 De wortels van poetry slams : een cultuur van performance .................................................................. 8 1.2.1 De Blackface Minstrelsy beweging bij het einde van de negentiende en begin van de twintigste eeuw .............................................................................................................................................................. 8 1.2.2 De Harlem Renaissance in de jaren twintig.......................................................................................... 9 1.2.3 De Beat Generation in de jaren vijftig en zestig ............................................................................... 10 1.2.4 De Black Arts Movement .................................................................................................................... 12 1.2.5 Hiphop vanaf de jaren zeventig.......................................................................................................... 14 2. Poetry slam en slam poetry: een korte beschrijving ............................................................................... 16 2.1 De eerste poetry slams in Chicago en New York ................................................................................. 16 2.2 Wat is een poetry slam? ........................................................................................................................ 19 2.2.1 Definitie .............................................................................................................................................. 19 2.2.2 De officiële regels en andere formaliteiten ....................................................................................... 20 2.2.3 Het verloop van een poetry slam ....................................................................................................... 21 2.2.4 Poëzie en performance ....................................................................................................................... 23 2.3 Slam poetry ............................................................................................................................................ 25 2.3.1 Bestaat er zoiets als een genre ‘ slam poetry’? ................................................................................... 25 2.3.2 Meer specifieke kenmerken van slam poetry .................................................................................... 26 2.3.3 Een belangrijke notie: de expressie van een identiteit ...................................................................... 27 2 3 Poetry slams in New York City ................................................................................................................. 31 3.1 De evolutie van poetry slams in New York City ..................................................................................... 31 3.2 De eerste golf: van 1990 tot 1996 ......................................................................................................... 34 3.2.1 De media-explosie .............................................................................................................................. 35 3.2.2 Het platenlabel: NuYo Records/Mouth Almighty ............................................................................... 37 3.2.3 De bloemlezing: Aloud, Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café ......................................................... 37 3.2.4 Opmerkelijke stemmen ...................................................................................................................... 39 3.2.4.1 Maggie Estep ................................................................................................................................... 39 3.2.4.2 Willie Perdomo ................................................................................................................................ 43 3.3 De tweede golf: van 1996 tot 2001 ....................................................................................................... 46 3.3.1 Een nieuw hoogtepunt: Slam Nation ................................................................................................. 46 3.3.2 Hand in hand met de documentaire: de fictiefilm Slam .................................................................... 48 3.3.3 Ondertussen in het Nuyorican Poets Café ......................................................................................... 50 3.3.4 Team Mouth Almighty/ NYC-Urbana ................................................................................................. 50 3.3.5 Een afsplitsing van het Nuyocian Poets Café: LouderARTS ................................................................ 54 3.3.6 Felice Belle neemt het Nuyorican roer over....................................................................................... 56 3.3.7 Opmerkelijke stemmen 3.3.7.1 Beau Sia ........................................................................................... 56 3.3.7.2 Saul Williams ................................................................................................................................... 61 3.4 De derde golf: van 2001 tot 2010.......................................................................................................... 66 3.4.1 Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry ................................................................................................. 66 3.4.2 Bob Holman slaat terug: de Bowery Poetry Club ............................................................................... 68 3.4.3 De jeugd neemt het woord: Urban Word .......................................................................................... 69 3.4.4 Poetry slams in de toekomst: een vooruitblik .................................................................................... 70 4 Besluit ....................................................................................................................................................... 74 5. Bibliografie .............................................................................................................................................. 77 3 4 0. Inleiding “Can Poetry Matter?” is de titel van een opzienbarend essay door Dana Gioia (1991) naar de plaats van poëzie in het leven van de doorsnee Amerikaanse burger. De weinig opbeurende conclusie luidt: nee, er is geen interesse meer in poëzie onder de Amerikanen. Niet iedereen is het daar echter mee eens en ook voor Gioia’s publicatie zijn de pogingen tot heropleving wel talrijk maar met wisselend succes. Eén van die pogingen – en wel de meest recente tot nogtoe – is de poetry slam , een geheel nieuw concept waarbij de poëzievoordracht in de vorm van een wedstrijd gegoten wordt. Deze beweging is nog vrij jong, het is niet heel verwonderlijk dat er nog weinig academisch werk over terug te vinden is. Maar naast de recente ontstaansdatum is er nog een andere reden voor het geringe aantal academische bronnen over slam : lange tijd werd de beweging met een schuin oog bekeken door academici. Eén van de redenen daarvoor is het hoge entertainmentgehalte dat slams bevatten. In een vernietigiende commentaar in het tijdschrift Paris Review schrijft de literaire criticus Harold Bloom bijvoorbeeld: Of course, now it’s all gone to hell. I can’t bear these accounts I read in the Times and elsewhere of these poetry slams, in which various young men and women in various late-spots are declaiming rant and nonsense at each other. The whole thing is judged by an applause meter which is actually not there, but might as well be. This isn’t even silly; it is the death of art (Bloom 2000: 379). Of poetry slams de dood van de kunst zijn is een hoogst subjectieve mening die ik in deze scriptie wens te ontkrachten noch te bevestigen. Feit is wel dat de houding van academici maar zeer langzaam veranderde, misschien met het opstaan van dichters die in beide culturele milieus succes oogstten. Het is ook opvallend dat er slechts één diepgaande academische studie bestaat over poetry slams in de Verenigde Staten. Die werd uitgevoerd door Susan Somers-Willet, die zelf ook ooit actief betrokken was in het slam circuit De tweede belangrijke bron waar ik in deze scriptie op terug kon vallen bevat veel minder academische referenties, maar is een getuigenis van het ontstaan en de sleutelmomenten van poetry slams in New York City. Op dat werk, geschreven door Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz, zal ik mij voornamelijk baseren. Mijn scriptie stelt tot doel een chronologisch overzicht te bieden van de evolutie van poetry slams , waarbij ik vertrek vanuit hun ontstaan in 19.. in Chicago en daarna mijn aandacht richt op New York City zelf. Daarbij zal ik per periode telkens het werk van de belangrijkste of meest opmerkelijke 5
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