PRESENTS: OPEN MIC
23RD FEBRARY 2013 / 6PM-7.30PM
| Saturday Day ticket |
Ticket includes access to the days exhibitions and talks aswell.
Network Bangla will showcase young British Bangladeshi MCs and poets discovered in our midst to celebrate talent and inspire others to be creative. As usual, there’ll be entertainment, cultural awareness through speakers and performers.
Performers:
Naga MC
Naga, a lyricist and producer from East London who has played at a variety of shows across the UK and abroad. He has featured in the Observer, BBC London, Asian network and has a role in the urban horror movie ‘Comedown’ releasing 28th January. Naga is currently working alongside the Asian Dub Foundation, recently performing around Europe. Watch out for his upcoming mixtape, due to be released this summer 2013.
Check out his latest material here - www.youtube.com/nagatubetv
Sulthana (Sulthana Begum)
From heartbreak to human rights, Sulthana’s poetry explores diverse themes. Though writing since childhood, she only discovered the spoken word scene in the last two years and loves the idea of poetry as an interactive experience. Besides writing and performing, she manages events around and outside of poetry and was Chair of New Audiences at Poet in the City in 2012. Beyond this, she’s an entrepreneur, designer, organiser, adrenaline junkie and scrabble champion with a heavy dose of we-can-change-the-world mentality.
Check out her website: www.hijackmyheart.com
Mizan the Poet (Mizanur Rahman)
A community worker with several years experience in working for charities has been doing spoken word poetry for just under a year and poetry to Mizan is a reflection of his inner thoughts and feelings.
Archetype (Farhat Amin)
Archetype is a poet who uses his experiences to shape his views of the world. He has been performing poetry for just over a year. Alongside this Archetype also raps and sings. His work can be found on www.soundcloud.com/farhatamin
Renegade (Rayhan Meah)
Rayhan has performed in several places and is headlining at Newcastle’s Riverside on February 4th for his second CD.
Mumtaaz (Taz Latif)
A Shakespeare groupie of Bengali heritage, throwing down a contemporary twist on classic poetic styles. Employed within the education sector and runs poetry workshops at her school, she aims to inspire the youth of today to seek forms of expression through the powerful medium that is poetry and spoken word. Taking to the stage only recently, she writes on extensions of her own experiences; striving to reach out to every soul in her audience with controversial, yet universal themes. Close your eyes and FEEL her words, don’t just hear them. She’ll bring the truth home!
Musalman Qualam
Musalman, that’s Muslimeen, Muslimaan, Musalman…another word for Muslim. Spoken word, not rap, that’s rhythmic rhyming words with precision, spoken word, as old as religion. www.musalman.me.uk
Musalman is also keen to build a Muslim men’s creative networks group particularly to create positive images of Islam via Bangladeshi Muslim men, which have an interest to work or be involved in the Islamic contribution to the creative industries.
Mr Jones (Salam Jones)
A (Talented) carpenter by day, writer by night, and poet by nature; he is currently working on two novels. He is considering a radio slot on Betar Bangla to discuss social issues that are currently blighting the British Bengali community, using poetry to create debate. Mr Jones is also heavily into charity, and runs the monthly event Hope N Mic nights, an open mic session to encourage local young writers/poets to get creative, and give them a platform to showcase their talent.
Saudha
Saudha, Society of Poetry and Indian Music organizes world-class music concerts, workshops, seminars and festivals on world-poetry and Indian music, mainly classical. It mainly endeavours to establish the subtle bond between lyrical poetry and classical music. Saudha aims to experiment and research the link between musical poetry and poetic music, to hybridize profane and sacred verses and to explore the ways to harmonize the Indian classical instruments and vocal with world musical instruments and vocal music as well.
Chandra is one of the finest North Indian vocalist and disciple of Late maestro Pandit A Kanan and Smt Malabika Kanan. She is a National Scholar, Gold Medallist in Thumri and ex-scholar of famous Sangeet Research Academy, Kolkata. Chandra has performed almost all over the world including South Africa and Pakistan. She was the principle vocal teacher of Indian Consulate, Johannesburg and a lecturer of Witwatersrand University, South Africa.To know more about Chandra Chakraborty please visit her website at : www.chandrachakraborty.info
Lyrics of Love: The world-class event endeavours to demonstrate the subtle but strong link between lyrical poetry and classical music. The great verses of Tagore is intertwined with the raga of relevant mood to interpret the meaning and images of celestial music and to propagate the message of love and deep humanism. Chandra Chakraborty, one of the finest Indian Classical Vocalists will be accompanied by impassioned reciter and Troubadour singer Erik Schelander, actress, versatile writer and impassioned reciter Leesa Gazi, prominent violinist Kamalbir Nandra, keyboard player Abu Emran Tonmoy and Tabla player Himansh Goswami.