I’m really happy to be curating some of the Literary events at this year’s FLAWA Festival (a festival in London dedicated to highlight the work of Latin American women artists).
Poetics in Motion Saturday 14 May 2022, 19:00 BST
Featuring poets Maia Elsner, Janel Pineda, Yvette Siegert, Sofía Vaisman who will be performing alongside open mic-ers; live music by the all-female bewitching Witchas!, and dance performance by the traditional dance group Somos Chibchas.
Open mic: Wish to share your own work on stage? Sign up on the night to enter your name into the open mic lucky dip draw – 6 slots 3 minutes each, selected at random.
Maia Elsner was born in London to Mexican and Polish Jewish parents. Her debut collection, overrun by wild boars (flipped eye, 2021), explores the dislocation of lives, communities, objects, and histories through migration and the legacies of colonisation. Most recently she has been involved in a film collaboration with Latin American artists across the diaspora, and in a poetry-postcard project that explores the refugee experience through troubling the line between verbal and visual arts.
Janel Pineda is a Los-Angeles born Salvadoran poet, educator, and the author of Lineage of Rain (Haymarket Books, 2021). Since her involvement with the 2018 Radical Roots Delegation, Pineda is also a member of the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES). She holds an MA in Creative Writing and Education from Goldsmiths, University of London and is currently pursuing an MPhil in Latin American Studies at the University of Cambridge.
Yvette Siegert is the author of Atmospheric Ghost Lights, selected for the 2021Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship Award. Her debut collection, a winner of the James Berry Poetry Prize, explores the civil war in El Salvador and is forthcoming from Bloodaxe Books. Shortlisted for the PEN Award for Poetry inTranslation.
Sofía Vaisman Maturana was born in Santiago, Chile 1993. Composer, poet, andmusic improviser. In 2019 awarded with the Victorina Press Poetry Awards (runner up), London. She currently publishes monthly chronicles of her experience as a boater for ‘Salvoconducta fanzine’ (Santiago, Chile).
Witchas! A music and arts collective based in London created by Latin Americanmigrant women and the daughters of Latin American migrants. They fusionBullerengue and other afro latin rhythms to create and experiment with new soundsand to inhabit cultural spaces usually dominated by male presence.
Somos Chibchas is a cultural association involving dance, music, visual arts and theater, focused on research, practice, preservation and diffusion of traditional Colombian culture and dances. Based on the study of old and new rhythms mostly focused on traditional dance movements and how they influence new dances developed for different genres of music.
Literary South 