23 Apr 2024

Poetavango Spoken Word in association with the Artivist Project from Los Angeles, US presented a historic event dubbed, Under the Poetree Chapter One, a live poetry, spoken word and storytelling event held at Nhabe Museum over the weekend.

The spectacular event featured different local poets who thrilled the audience with spoken word and some guest performance artists from Ghanzi who displayed a classic performance entitled, Tales under the stars with Tumku Bob and Nicodemus Barkard.

Through their piece, Tumku told cultural stories from her community of Baswara in her Naro-language recounting a hunter’s survival tactics.

The atmosphere was charged with energy and creativity as there was a sense of camaraderie among the participants as they displayed a beautiful and classic performance for the first time.

Artists shared their works, connected well with other members of the team and indeed experienced the power of spoken word in a live setting.

Popular Poetavango poet, Ponatshego Katlholo known in poetry circles as Mista Poke presented a series if spoken word and poetry, touching on variety of themes from political consciousness to motivational odes.

The youthful Anthony Molosi commonly known as ‘AnthXny’ followed with the ‘The Maverick’ where he presented kicks off with a look and how slavery had affected humanity and then launched into vernacular poems that teach, advice and appreciate.

Poetavango chairperson, Legodile Seganabeng affectionally known as ‘Dredd X’ also took the audience on a mellow, soulful journey with his acoustic poetry.

He condemned social ills, appreciated loved ones and serenades with his music while the Yrneh Gabon mesmerised the audience with his soothing piece titled Welcome Home Son and redemption songs, which is a cry for all people on the African continent to emancipate themselves from metal slavery and to be empowered.

He also recited a poem ‘Blood-A-Run’ which was inspired by the killing of people born with Albinism.

Yrneh Gabon played a key role in advocating for the passing of the bill that protects people with albinism around the world and thus resulted in June 13 declared World Albinism Day across the world.

The Artivist Project is dedicated to supporting and creating music and art that inspires positive social transformation and it has taken its work across borders to share knowledge and its capacity for positive futures for all.

The ‘Under the Poetree’ Chapter One initiative was birthed by a Jamaican multi-disciplinary, mixed media and performance artist and artistic director, Yrneh Gabon Brown who is based in Los Angeles and is also a US Fulbright scholar at the University of Botswana where he engages in research and creates art on climate change sought to also integrate artistic representation and social activism particularly on issues pertinent to Africa and its diaspora.

He has collaborated with Poetavango to show artists the fruits of creative arts and how they could tell a story with managed sound stage as well as use artistic mediums as tools for empowerment.  

Giving an insight on the Under the Poetry initiative, Seganabeng revealed that they were starting a journey on a different note which they wanted to nurture as an organisation.

He said they had long wanted to explore such journey but never had resources, skills and the know how to put up the beautiful project.

However, he thanked Yrneh Gabon for coming to their rescue citing that they met three years ago now managed to put up the project through his support.

For his part, Yrneh Gabon thanked the team for displaying a sterling performance.

He explained that he came to Botswana three years ago to research on social ills impacting the communities and the ecological climate change in the Okavango Delta and Makgadikgadi Pans.

During his stay, he said he looked for a community based group to work with in an effort to make a difference in the art industry and Okavango Research Institute (ORI) which hosted him recommended Poetavango hence their collaboration in staging Under the Poetree’ event.

He hoped that one day Maun would have a theatre where artists could have an opportunity to enhance their creativity and achieve their dreams.

“Arts matters and as the community you have to support artists because art was the only tool they can tell stories related to people’s lives.

In Botswana, I want young people, men and women even children benefiting from the art industry,” he added.

His mission is to use his fine arts practice to re-educate and address the inequities within underserved communities and reconstruct a narrative that bridges people facing social, inspirational seeing with the mind’s eyes and speaking from the heart. He is of the view that people need to speak less and do more for positive and social empowerment. ENDS