Apples and Snakes Rallying Cry at Battersea Arts Centre (Image: Jerry Kiesewetter)
When: 4th – 6th October 2018, 7pm & 8.30pm
Where: Battersea Arts Centre, Lavender Hill, London SW11 5TN
£: Tickets cost £12.50 or £10 for concessions
What is it?
The UK’s leading spoken word organisation, Apples and Snakes, celebrates 35 years with an immersive journey through London’s Battersea Arts Centre, rallying the voices of protest. Rallying Cry will take place from Thursday 4th to Saturday 6th October, with performances from respected poets.
2018 has seen hundreds of thousands take to the streets in protest: against Trump, against immigration policies, for women’s rights. Apples and Snakes, who for 35 years have been providing a platform for both established and emerging spoken word performers, will be holding a rallying, raucous call to arms in the form of an immersive journey through the iconic Battersea Arts Centre to celebrate and empower those taking a stand.
Writer and musician Roger Robinson (Image: Suzi Corker)
Performers will include writer and musician Roger Robinson, named one of the 50 most influential writers in the black literary canon; Malaysian-born poet Francesca Beard, whose work has been performed at the Royal Court, Southbank Centre and Houses of Parliament; and Hannah Silva, whose poetry collection Total Man was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award in New Work.
There will also be a recorded performance from poet and broadcaster Lemn Sissay MBE, who was the official poet of the 2012 London Olympics.
Travelling through Battersea Arts Centre, audiences will be immersed in the grade II listed building and hear from both respected and new poets, whose angry and affirming words address the state of the world today.
Battersea Arts Centre’s 125 year old building has housed a range of radical voices over the years, from leading suffragette Charlotte Despard to artist Lubaina Himid. Rallying Cry brings this rebel spirit to the present day.
Alongside Rallying Cry, and as part of its 35th anniversary, Apples and Snakes will be presenting 35 Voices, produced in collaboration with students and staff at UTC (Elstree University Technical College), which showcases the recorded work of 35 poets you should know about. This Blackbox Series will give artists the opportunity to have their spoken word poetry professionally recorded, and will address pertinent issues from austerity and immigration, to masculinity and motherhood.
More info: www.bac.org.uk
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