BORN::FREE presents Veranda: Poetry Party

Veranda is London’s flagship poetry and music jam curated and hosted by Belinda Zhawi and malakaï sargeant. Featuring a house band boasting London’s most exciting musicians, and an audience made up of minds ready for meditation, conversation and creative elevation, Veranda facilitates experimental live performance that prioritises Afro-diasporic narratives – opening up space for rhythmic dialogue + curious encounters.

BORN::FREE’s Poetry Party will be a Veranda like no other. A two-room affair featuring multidisciplinary performances from writer and director Arnold Chukwu + legendary poet Zena Edwards, complemented by the Veranda house band, the night will end with ass-shaking and skanking upstairs with tunes brought to you by XANA.

Arnold Chukwu
Arnold Chukwu is a Director, Writer and Multidisciplinary-Artist from South East London. As a screenwriter/director he has had his work selected and screened at institutions such as the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts), the BFI (British Film Institute) and Pinewood Studios. He has had poetry work commissioned by @southbankcentre and The Design Museum. And in 2021 he was nominated for the BBC’s New Comedy Award. Arnold is currently working on his debut music project under the name “MC Jideofor”.

Zena Edwards
Zena Edwards has been involved in performance for 25 years. She has been a performance poet since 1991, performing professionally and facilitating workshops in poetry and creative writing since 2002. Raised in Tottenham, North London, Zena has become known as one the most unique voices of performance poetry to come out of London and was nominated for the Arts Foundation Award for Performance Poetry 2007. She has toured extensively around the UK and Europe and has been supported by the Apples and Snakes poetry organisation, 57 Productions and the British Council. Zena explores storytelling by the process of fusing various art mediums - poetry, music, dance, film, animation and cinematic soundtrack - stretching the boundaries of verse in urban theatre and the connections between the written and spoken word with multimedia.

(DJ SET)
Xana is a freestyle live loop musician, sound artist, vibrational sound designer, poet, archival audio producer, audio researcher, scratch DJ, installation artist and theatre maker. Xana also deconstructs words to make improvisational performances and composes scores for film through Xana's genres: Orchestral Noise, Ancestors Revenge and Thicc Bass. Xana is a music science and technology lead at music research label Inventing Waves, where they develop accessible sound systems for spaces and is a sound arts facilitator.

About BORN::FREE
BORN::FREE is a literary arts organisation founded in 2014 for established, young & emerging writers of all narratives, with a special interest in African/Afro-diasporic & experimental writing. Having presented work in the UK and internationally, partnering with the likes of the V&A, ICA, British Council, Southbank Centre and Somerset House, BORN::FREE is a staple in London’s poetry scene.

Special Early Bird Booking Offer (no promotion code required) - First Thirty Bookers - £5.00 per ticket reduction
Afterwards All Tickets: £15.00

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