FIAFest: VANESSA KISUULE – PERFORMANCE POETRY

Vanessa Kisuule is a writer and performer based in Bristol. She has won over ten slam titles including The Roundhouse Slam 2014, Hammer and Tongue National Slam 2014 and the Nuoryican Poetry Slam.

In 1974, the contraceptive pill was made available to single women on the NHS for the first time. What has changed since then? What if child-free/childless women were at the centre of that narrative?

TheBabyQuestion is a theatrical film exploring the narratives of women who are child-free by choice or circumstance, set in the world of a seventies Top Of The Pops style chart tv show.

During the live recording of a 70s Top of the Pops style chart show, female dancers perform Pan’s People style routines for a studio audience.

Meanwhile, an unseen male host mixes chart hit titles with landmark moments in feminism, reproductive ri

She has been featured on BBC iPlayer, Radio 1, and Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, Blue Peter, Don’t Flop and TEDx in Vienna. She has appeared at an array of literary and music festivals and was Glastonbury Festival’s Resident Poet in 2019. She has been invited to perform all over the world from Belgium to Brazil to Bangladesh.

Her poem on the historic toppling of Edward Colston’s statue ‘Hollow’ gained over 600,000 views on Twitter in three days. She has two poetry collections published by Burning Eye Books and her work was Highly Commended in the Forward Poetry Prize Anthology 2019. She has written for publications including The Guardian, NME and Lonely Planet and has publication credits in pending anthologies with Canongate, Orion and Penguin Random House.

Age Guidance 16+

Running time 40 mins approx

Tickets £5 offer