Carolyn Joyner, the featured poet at the inauguration of Performetry.

After a week’s delay, Performetry opened on Sunday, May 5 at 3:00 p.m. at BloomBars. It was a friendly and diverse gathering of folks. And most importantly, we heard so great poetry and great music.

Michael performing Song of Myself.

Gowri Koneswaran welcomed us to the award-winning BloomBars art space. Maya Oliver played MC and lent the afternoon an energetic upbeat feel.

Robert Michael Oliver got us started with the opening 25-minute section of Walt Whitman’s original Song of Myself.  Occasionally accompanied by recorded music by Matt “SwampGuinee” Miller and Doug Fraser, Michael’s articulation of Whitman’s epic drew out the poem’s humanity. Michael will perform the second section of the poem at the June 23 Performetry. Next Fall, Michael will perform the entire piece, complete with music and photographs. The May 26 event will allow audiences to witness the film version of Michael’s “The Raven,” produced jointly by the Performing Knowledge Project and Barn Door Productions.

Guitarist David McKinley Ward followed with the first of his two sets of ballads, starting with four or five from his favored Ireland.  He’d pick up that theme in his second set after our featured poet, adding in several ballads from the American folklore tradition.

David in performance.

Then came none other than the fabulous Carolyn Joyner.  Carolyn gave us a glimpse into her soul with poems of love and protest, pain and joy, a wonderful swathe of different experiences and feelings to contemplate. She had created a compilation of various tunes, from blues to jazz, to lend flavor to her performance.

Carolyn doing her thing.

When the Open Mic began we were blown away by a fabulous performance by Peter Storey of an original unnamed poem about a mother’s quest to find her missing son.  His performance was followed by poet John MacDonald’s clever, insightful poems and Mary Stone Hanley’s gorgeous tribute to motherhood, “A Womb of Her Own.”  Elizabeth Bruce finished the event with one of her poetic Flash Fictions, “Cargo Pants,” a piece to be included in Legal Tender, Performing Knowledge’s entry into Capital Fringe Festival this summer.

All in all, the event was a fun, rapturous demonstration of the diversity that is the universe of Poetry in Performance.

Carolyn Joyner is the featured poet this month, with music provided by Letitia Vansant & David McKinley Ward. For the “old poems” section of the event, Robert Michael Oliver will perform the opening movements of Song of Myself, and an Open Mic will close out the event.

We hope to see you at Performetry this coming Sunday.

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Each 2-hour event brings audiences a featured poet, classical poetry performed, an Open Mic for poets and flash fiction artists, and a musician.  So far, Performing Knowledge has scheduled the first three events, and if things go according to plans, Performetry will become a regular 4th Sunday of the month event at BloomBars.

According to the Director of The Performing Knowledge Project, Robert Michael Oliver, the idea behind Performetry is to create a venue for different styles of poetry in performance.  “Poetry never lives or dies on the page,” says Oliver, who created and performed the one-man poetry in performance piece Embodying Poe.  “Poetry’s essence and vitality has always burned brightest in performance.  Poe, for example, filled auditoriums when he performed ‘The Raven.’  Believe it or not, Whitman’s free verse is rooted in the public oratory of his day.  He heard it when he wrote it; and we have to hear it to experience its force even today.”

Oliver is honored by the fact that three fabulous D.C. poets have agreed to perform their work in Performetry’s first three events.  Carloyn Joyner will take the stage on April 28, Abdul Ali on May 26, and then Mary Stone Hanley on June 23.

For the classical poetry section of each event, the 57-year-old Oliver will share sections of his new poetry in performance piece The Whitman Project, as well as his film version of “The Raven.”

The Open Mic and a featured area musician round out each Performetry.

“We’re hoping that the mix of classical and modern, musical and lyric attract a regular audience,” says Oliver.  If it does, the Performing Knowledge Project plans on continuing Performetry into the future.

Performing Knowledge is pleased to be working in collaboration with BloomBars, Poets and Writers, Inc., and The DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities to bring you this exciting new venture.  Although BloomBars turns no one away, they do request a suggested donation of $10 at the door.  Light food and beverage are provided.

Poets and Writers, Inc. has supported this work for over a year now, as Mr. Oliver & The Performing Knowledge Project has worked with CentroNia, Pigment Arts Studio, The DC Poetry Project, and The MotherStory Collective to help energize and galvanize the poetic voice in the area.

A part of the expansion includes Tuesday Workshops that focus of poetic fiction, Open Mics at Zeba Bar, and a series of performance events entitled Performetry: Old Poems, New Poems, Your Poems.

Robert Michael Oliver & The Performing Knowledge Project want to thank the DC Commission for their generous support for poetry and its performance.

This past Saturday, June 23, at Artomatic 2012, The Performing Knowledge Project presented a 90-minute “Theatri-Poetry” workshop, entitled “Weighing your Words”.  

Participants in the 90-minute workshop exercised their imaginations, placing themselves and their vocabularies in situations that require the succinct expression of thought and feeling.  They then toured some of the exhibitions, writing poetic responses to some of the offerings by other artists.

The workshop was inspired by Jessica Beels and her Weigh your Words installation at Artomatic.  Michael Oliver and Elizabeth Bruce of Sanctuary Theatre’s Performing Knowledge Project created and facilitated the session.

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