Music + Poetry + Art. How We Put Together Unfolded: A Beautiful Creative Experience.
“There could not be an art more boring than poetry. How am I supposed to enjoy it?”
“Poetry is both overwhelming and underwhelming at the same time.”
“Truth be told it (poetry) is high sounding nonsense stuffed down our ears.”
These words did three things to Oreoluwa Macaulay: they got her attention, broke her heart and spurred her to at least try to set the records straight regarding poetry’s value. After all, she is a poet and people she knew had just labelled her favourite art form bland and meaningless.
“What if that statement reflected a widespread opinion about poetry?”
“What if most people found poetry uninteresting?”
These questions formed the idea to create an artistic experience that would help participants genuinely enjoy. The goal? to make poetry more accessible by encouraging audience participation, creative content types, delivery methods plus a stimulating and relaxing ambience. And so Unfolded was born.
A beautiful blend of music, poetry and visual art, and voila! An immersive creative adventure was on the cards.
The Venue
Aligned perfectly with our vision to foster art appreciation and make art conversations cultural, we were thrilled to host Unfolded and build the experience. Artpedia’s Gallery has always brimmed with creative energy and boasted of a collection of beautiful and rare artistry. The ambience fully offering an intimate experience was what we needed.
The Artistes
Getting it right meant everything, and every act lined up for the day had to be spot on.
There’s Ore Macaulay, a performance poet with a penchant for telling rousing tales of love, freedom, diversity, and healing. Her pieces are relatable and her delivery engaging.
Bunmi Africa – another performance poet who doesn’t shy away from talking about the elephant in the room. With stirring narratives, she challenges norms, shares her strong convictions and influences minds. She favours a strong tone that makes people pay attention and this demanded that.
Dwin the Stoic – aka the Master of Ballads, a skilled poet and an even better music artiste. With his soothing voice, emotive lyrics, and charming mannerisms, he always delivers a well-rounded performance.
Chukwudi Ukonne – anyone can reel off high sounding compositions but it takes a master to make an impression with simple words. Chukwudi, a performance poet, makes a brilliant impression every time with simple words. His words are pregnant with meaning, thought-provoking and sticky. And we wanted that.
Ifeoluwa Olutimehin (i-solo) – armed with a guitar and a penetrating voice, Ife serenades and we wanted just that.
Muyiwa Akhigbe – Muyiwa’s unique blend of afro-futurist sound and shades of other genres would add a fresh, yet familiar note to the evening. People love his single “Rara” and we knew they’d lap up a live performance of the song.
D-Day
The cradling warmth of our gallery welcomed the guests as they thronged in. The ambience helped lock away the outside world and immersed you completely in what’s going on. We opted for warm lighting that cast a soothing purplish hue on everything in the room. People were bound to lose track of time and that meant they would have one less distraction. Participants won’t be mere consumers but also co-creators and moderators on this journey.
One of the highlights was Chukwudi’s performance. To soft strums of the guitar, he delivered a piercing poem. Here’s an excerpt:
“What is it about the thing around your neck that you love so much? It is your halo in the morning, your necklace at noon but at night it becomes your noose. The thing that tortures you becomes your muse. And you’re so desperate to feel alive you don’t realize it’s killing you.”
Chukwudi took deliberate pauses between his lines, allowing his audience to soak up each one before moving on to the next. You could hear a pin drop as the audience stared intently at him. It was obvious he was striking all the right chords. Who said poetry was bland and flat?
Then there was Bunmi Africa who performed a deeply moving piece which participants listened to blindfolded. It was one of the many surprises we had lined up. The idea was to create a unique experience where people could really get rid of all distractions and get lost in the poet’s story. And it worked. Here’s how one participant recounted what she felt during the session: “the poet’s words become your sole focus. Your imagination kicks in and words morph into vivid images so you don’t just hear the poet’s story. You also see it play out.”
Muyiwa Akhigbe did a song on good and evil and it sparked a conversation right after. Participants reached for the microphone and offered their thoughts on the complexities of good and evil and how there were grey areas in between. There we were, getting people to discuss Muyiwa’s poetic lyrics animatedly.
Following that first performance, Muyiwa then really got the crowd going when he performed his single “Rara.” Most people are suckers for stories of unrequited love and our audience soon began singing along.
Then up came Dwin and he absolutely stole the show. By the time he was done performing Ifunanyam, a song that seemed to be people’s pick of the lot, the audience were pleading to have him back on stage. He obliged and treated us to a couple of his unreleased songs. You could tell everyone was fully present as people sang along and threw jokes around. Someone screamed a resounding “yes” when a line in Dwin’s song asked if his imaginary lover would go on a getaway trip with him. Such was the connection between the participants and the artistes.
The sip and paint session has to be up there with the highlights of the event. Quickly we arranged mini-paint boards on easels that fit on a table. People sat opposite each other and tried to paint whatever they liked. The art pieces hanging on the walls served as inspiration. It also helped that Ore Macaulay was reciting a vivid poem about nature as people painted. The swish-swash movement of brushes on canvases resulted in colourful paintings depicting different figures ranging from blue skies to thick forests, birds in flight to human faces.
With Ore’s poem all wrapped up, Ifeoluwa swooped in with her guitar and sonorous voice and the evening got even better. It looked like we had hit a home run with both the selected artistes and the activities.
People clearly had a great time if their comments were anything to go by. Charles for example said his expectations were fully met. In his words:
“I expected to come into a space with amazing creatives coming to deliver heavily on their craft in a stripped down experience that the Artpedia Gallery gives. I expected a huge participation between audience and performers, even more I expected an intimate experience with raw words revealing pure emotions. And this was what I got.” Oh and he called referred to Chukwudi and Bunmi Africa as “great poets.” He could truly appreciate their performances. Mission accomplished, if you ask us and Ore, of course.
We knew peeling away the layers from various art forms and exposing people to their essence wouldn’t be easy, but we had a plan. We involved the audience and drew on all their senses to create an experience that was both immersive and measured. In the end, people were treated to doses of creativity strong enough to tickle all their creative nodes without overwhelming them. So, they could genuinely enjoy every performance, which was our goal.
A plan that began with the desire to help people enjoy poetry evolved into a full-blown creative event that featured various art forms. Given the results and their alignments with our goals as a brand, the next edition of Unfolded is certainly not far away.
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