Live Poetries and Performance :
an online course

Will be run next as a group course in 2023. Now available as an individual program, with details here www.stevenjfowler.com/courses

Taught by Steven J Fowler. For booking, via paypal, please click here

Sound Poetry, dance-poetry, video-poetry, theatre-poetry. Reading, recitation, installation, improvisation. Live collaboration and performance literature.

Every live poem is a new work and poetry began in sound. Comprehensively reflecting upon an artform borne of liveness, this course will explore readings, recitation, installations, dramaturgy, sound poetry, dance, music, collaboration and performance - delving into what is possible when the poet mindfully explores the body, the voice, time, space, presence and absence, technology and the immutable idea of the audience.

Not a course aimed at extraverts, this course will be a practical, as well as conceptual, journey through what is often erroneously second in the poet's arsenal. What is the meaning of a poem spoken and heard, over written and the read? What are the possibilities of recorded or installed poems? Why has the 21st century seen a grand resurgence in performance literature, which takes live art as inspiration? We will examine the art of public reading, improvisation, talking performances, scripts and scores, as well as orchestration and planning.

This course will emphasise method. Participants will be sent a succinct document of resources once a week – ideas, examples, concepts, history, accompanied by exercises or prompts. Then, on a private blog-forum, responses - including written poems, video and audio recordings, images, scores, notations and performance plans - can be posted, with comments and feedback from all involved. When the course finishes, an event will consolidate that which everyone has produced.

Backed up with case studies on a swathe of brilliant poet performers or those who wrote with liveness in mind - from Samuel Beckett to Peter Handke, Marina Abramovic to Elaine Mitchener, Bob Cobbing to bp nichol, Maja Jantar to Jonathan Burrows and many many others- this course with expand the knowledge of those familiar with live events and offer strategies to those looking to tread boards.

LiPoPe follows sold out courses - Seen as Read, The Writing Eye and EUROPOE.

Taught by Steven J Fowler. Performances include commissions for Tate Modern, Liverpool Biennial, BBC Radio 3, Hay on Wye festival, Hay Xalapa, Hay Arequipa, Airwaves Music Festival. He has headlined the Frankfurt Fokus Lyrik Festival, given 7 performance readings in 7 days for the 57th Struga Poetry Fest in Macedonia and an hour long improvised poetry performance for the Vilnius Book Fest. He has collaborated with composers such as Philip Venables and sound artists such as Phil Minton, Dylan Nyoukis and Sharon Gal. http://www.stevenjfowler.com/performance / http://www.stevenjfowler.com/talking / http://www.stevenjfowler.com/collaborativeperformance / http://www.stevenjfowler.com/readings / http://www.stevenjfowler.com/music