Roundhouse Presents: Spoken Word & Circus Art
We are thrilled to welcome back the Roundhouse to Citadel this Summer, who will be hosting a pop up stage showcasing a mix of live performances – from Roundhouse Resident Artists and in-house training Collectives. There will also be opportunities to take part in workshops exploring the skills featured in the live performances.
Circus Art
Throwdown
Directed by Simple Cypher & Ed Stephen
Produced by Roundhouse
Throwdown is an energetic in-your-face encounter, bursting with the individual style and personality of a team of young circus artists, hip hop dancers and a live beatboxer. Switch up the worlds of hip hop, contemporary circus and live music in this brand new show for an up close audience. Featuring artists from the Roundhouse & BAC Beatbox Academy.
Jaide Annalise
Jaide Annalise is a circus artist specialising in Cyr Wheel and Acrobatics. In every performance, Jaide likes to bring a little piece of herself into the work she creates – contemporary circus with an urban edge.
Hands Down Circus
Hands Down Circus, made up of Carys Nicholls and Graham Milligan, aspire to create and collaborate original contemporary circus work in the UK and beyond.
Using a unique blend of hand to hand acrobatics and prop manipulation HDC create performances that are full of life and brimming with visual imagery.
Street Circus Drop In Workshops
Your chance to try a range of circus skills whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned professional.
BAC Beatbox Academy (Guest Artists)
BAC Beatbox Academy is the UK’s most exciting group of beatboxers, singers, rappers and spoken-word artists, creating original music only with their mouths!
The Academy was set up 10 years ago by Battersea Arts Centre, SK Shlomo, MC Zani and Conrad Murray as a project to inspire local young people, to unlock their abilities and build their confidence through music-making.
Spoken Word
Kit Finnie.
Kit Finnie writes poems that are honest and particular, looking slant-ways at her childhood in the East Midlands, Britishness and, mostly, the ravages of time. According to A Younger Theatre, she makes spoken word ‘ripe and ready for the taking for every single member of the audience’, and the Morning Star has called her performances ‘effervescent’. Kit is a Barbican Young Poets alumni, member of Spit The Atom collective, has been published in several zines and anthologies, and performs widely across London.SpeakEasy, the night she founded, runs and hosts has held a monthly residency at the Phoenix Artist Club in the heart of Soho since 2015.
Rakaya Fetuga
Rakaya Esime Fetuga is a poet from London of Ghanaian and Nigerian heritage. Her work joins conversations on overlapping identities, faith and culture as self-affirmation.
Rakaya won the Spread the Word Poetry Prize in 2017 and the Roundhouse Poetry Slam in 2018. She was shortlisted for the Out-Spoken Poetry Prize in 2018 and 2019.
As well as performing at UK venues such as the British Museum, Royal Albert Hall, Trafalgar Square and The Ivy, Rakaya shared poetry at Kosmopolis Festival Barcelona and 010 Says it All Rotterdam in 2019. Rakaya has facilitated workshops across the UK and has been commissioned by Bloomberg Philanthropies with Vanity Fair, English Touring Theatre and Kyra TV. Rakaya is a member of ::nana:: Poetry Collective.
Kirk-Ann
Kirk-Ann is a director, spoken-word poet and performer. She is a Working Class Artist from north London born in the Caribbean who wants to make a change, platform under-represented voices, less talked about issues & increase the inclusivity, accessibility and representation within the Theatre and Poetry Scenes. Also a Theatre Maker & Facilitator & Writer. She has worked with the likes of Talawa Theatre Company, Emergency Exit Arts, London Bubble, Pleasance Theatre and Blue Elephant. She was a finalist to the Roundhouse poetry slam 2019, Graduate of the Young Vic Directors Programme & Almeida Young Producers. She makes work focused on topics such as identity and home, producing work that is innovative and honest. Kirk-Ann is the Director & Dramaturg of S.W.E.P.E a full-length Theatre Show programmed apart of Last Word and Vaults festival.
Tatenda Matsvai
Tatenda Naomi Matsvai is a spoken word artist, training actor and theatre maker. Born in Zimbabwe, she’s lived in South East London for 13 years and studied Theatre at The BRIT School of Performing Arts. She is currently studying European Theatre Arts at Rose Bruford College of Theatre & Performance. Tatenda’s work explores the world, the communities she belongs to and their intersection with her identity, while weaving between art forms across fiction and reality. “You have a voice, so use it”, is Tatenda’s motto and she believes in the power of spoken word as a tool for change.