The new EAST Spoken Word & Poetry Collective

Want to express yourself through poetry?
Want to meet other youth and mentors interested in spoken word?
Want a chance to showcase your work?
Register for FREE workshops that explore creativity and performance in your Scarborough neighbourhood!EAST Spoken Word and Poetry poster image

Scarborough Arts, in collaboration with R.I.S.E. Edutainment and the Toronto Public Library, presents the EAST Spoken Word & Poetry Collective for youth ages 12-18. This Collective provides youth with local opportunities to explore creativity and performance and develop their craft in poetry and spoken word under the guidance of emerging artists and community facilitators from R.I.S.E. Edutainment.

Taking the idea of “neighbourhood games” as a theme, the program is designed to promote youth creative expression, animate communities and public spaces, and inspire collaboration between young performers and their peers across the Scarborough. Participants in the program will have several opportunities to showcase their work, receive feedback, and learn about wider youth arts networks and resources.

The FREE workshops are anchored in four key Scarborough neighbourhoods and will take place at the following local Toronto Public Library Branches:

  • Agincourt Branch (155 Bonis Avenue) – May 13-June 14 (Tuesdays 4-5:30 p.m.)
  • Malvern Branch (30 Sewells Road) – June 21-July 26 (Saturdays 2-3:30 p.m.)
  • Morningside Branch (4279 Lawrence Avenue East) – August 2-September 6 (Saturdays 2-3:30 p.m.)
  • Cedarbrae Branch (645 Markham Road) – September 13-October 11 (Saturdays 2-3:30 p.m.)

Registration is required. Please click here for the registration form or visit the Information Desk at one of the above libraries to pick up a copy.

The Spoken Word & Poetry Collective is generously funded by the Toronto Community Foundation Vital Youth/Playing for Keeps initiative and is presented by Scarborough Arts in partnership with R.I.S.E. Edutainment and the Toronto Public Library. EAST is partnered with Agincourt Community Services Association, Boys & Girls Club of East Scarborough, Heart Beatz – Cliffcrest Community Centre, Phase One Studios, Birchmount Bluffs Neighbourhood Centre, G5 Canadian Urban, JVS Toronto, and a range of other organizations that aim to build skills, provide training, and support new networks among youth in under-served communities. We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Ontario Trillium Foundation.

Monitor 10: South Asian Experimental Film + Video

24 April 2014 – 7:00 pm 
Jackman Hall, AGO, 
317 Dundas St. W 
$10 general / $5 students / members free
Featuring works by

Shambhavi Kaul (India/USA)
Bee Thiam (Singapore)
Anahita Norouzi (Iran/Canada)
The Youngrrr (Indonesia)
Priya Sen (India)
WALA + Kush (India)

Curated by Shai Heredia

For the last decade, Monitor: South Asian Experimental Film + Video has carved out a unique place in Canada. It has held a steady engagement with an international community of artists, curators and critics, and has initiated dialogues around the shifting nature of South Asian politics, economies and landscape through artists’ film and video.

Curated by Shai Heredia, founder of Experimenta (India’s first experimental film festival), the works in Monitor 10 engage various forms of melodrama to produce wry, entertaining and complex political commentary. Foregrounding overwrought characters like seductive mothers, political villains, and campy sci fi/horror sets that seem to take on a life of their own, the videos engage with the politics of drama; linking the personal act to the political realm.

For more information: http://savac.net/monitor-10-2/