WordSpeak Team Heads to Brave New Voices

Tigertail's WordSpeak spoken word team will compete in Brave New Voices, the international youth poetry slam festival held this year in the San Francisco Bay area from July 17 to 21, 2012. For the 8th year in a row, the Tigertail WordSpeak team has been invited to compete in this prestigious festival, selected from among the nearly 100 teams who applied. The Olympics of spoken word, Brave New Voices includes over 500 youth poets from 50 cities across the U. S. as well as from as far away as England and Taiwan. The Miami team was chosen from a field of more than 1000 teenagers from local high schools who participated in our WordSpeak and SpeakOut programs.

This year's team is made up of Maylin Enamorado from Miami Arts Charter; Brianna Woods from Miami Northwestern Senior High; Javana Dunnom, from North Miami Senior High; Alejandra Nunez, who graduated from DASH; and Giovanni Garced and Samantha Turner, who graduated from North Miami Beach Senior High. Alejandra, Giovanni and Samantha return from last year's team, which made it all the way to the semi-finals.

Tigertail's WordSpeak and SpeakOut programs are ongoing life-changing spoken word programs for 1000 inner city South Florida youth. WordSpeak events provide Miami students from 13 to 19 years of age the opportunity to use poetry as a vehicle of self-expression in an appealing medium that blends poetry, theater and hip hop culture. In WordSpeak, they develop their writing, speaking and performance skills and learn teamwork.

Each year WordSpeak brings in prominent writers from outside Florida for residencies that include school and community-based workshops, readings, and student competitions. In 2012 these visiting artists included Oakland, CA-based spoken word poet, writer, community organizer, arts educator and comedic powerhouse Josh Healey and nationally recognized performer and writer Lenelle Moïse.

Now in its 15th year, Brave New Voices will bring together young artists, outspoken activists, educators, poets and emerging leaders to the San Francisco Bay Area to participate in a celebration and demonstration of free speech, artistic empowerment, and youth voice. The festival creates forums for dialogue, provide workshops for open and free expression, and facilitate conversations formally and informally that foster artistic and personal growth. Brave New Voices pulls together young people from throughout the United States and abroad who celebrate and empower themselves through the written and spoken word. Brave New Voices reflects diversity as a value, crossing and challenging notions of ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic, and geographic divisions.

The coach for Tigertail WordSpeak is director/performer/writer Teo Castellanos. Poet/educator Angela Kardos serves as assistant to the coach. They will accompany the team at Brave New Voices. All attendees will stay in the dormitories at Clark Kerr Campus at the Univesity of California in Berkeley.

Immediately following the WordSpeak team's journey to Brave New Voices, Tigertail will send two of the team members – Gio Garced and Samantha Turner – to Curaçao to teach and perform at Teatro Luna Blou.

Gio and Samantha, veterans of the WordSpeak team, have been invited to Luna Blou to work in residence from July 30 to August 4, 2012. As part of an on-going program with Curaçao begun in 2006, Tigertail has held multiple exchanges. Last year we sent Haitian-born musican Jan Sebon to teach at Luna Blou and perform with Chin Behilia, whom we brought to Miami three years ago to perform with Sebon. In July, 2010, we brought two teens and their director to Miami to perform and work with the WordSpeak team. In 2009, Tigertail sent Teo Castellanos to Curaçao to teach and perform.

International exchange is one of Tigertail's primary interests. We feel it is essential to "keep the doors open" to other countries. This international exchange project continues the vital exchange work that we began in 2006 with Curaçao and helps to develop new on-going exchanges. This exchange project is funded by a Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs International Cultural Exchange grant, Teatro Luna Blou and Tigertail.