News Release
March 1999
The Nuyorican National Championship Poetry Slam Team performs
its dynamic delivery of slam poetry on Wednesday, March 17, 1999 at
8:00 p.m. in Moravian College's Prosser Auditorium. With rapid beat,
incisive wit, well-placed anger and firey performance, the group strategies
and utilizes a team system to give passionate voice to multi-layered,
social and political issues.
This winning team captured the championship title for
New York City and the Nuyorican Poets Café, in the five day 1998
National Poetry Slam competition held in Austin, Texas. The finals scene
was standing room only inside the gorgeous 1300 seat Paramount Theatre,
leaving disappointed crowds standing outside in the rain. Poets from
59 cities and teams from 45 cities around the USA and Canada slammed
their stuff.
The slamming objective focuses on the performer's spoken
word to establish a connection with the audience on a visceral level,
instead of the restraint that many poetry readings have become. Wordsmiths
go at it poem for poem - no props, no costumes, no musical accompaniment
- it's the "sport of the spoken word". You will be entertained,
you will be disturbed, you will laugh, you will cry, you will have a
heck of a lot of fun experiencing this biting commentary - the only
thing you will not be is indifferent!
Talented team member, Alix Olson, Bethlehem native, graduate
of Liberty High School and Wesleyan University first appeared on the
slam scene in 1997. Olson was the newest member of the Santa Cruz Team
from New York's Nuyorican Café when she stepped forward to deliver
the winning slam in Austin. She majored in political science, and minored
in women's studies at Wesleyan, but stirrings of her strong social conscience
combined with performing words flared in Bethlehem. Olson is a master
manipulator of the spoken-word swiftly cutting to the most powerful
meaning. Winner of the "In Her Own Write" Poetry Competition
as well as other national awards, Olson says "when I wrote my first
piece, I felt like I had written my own monologue, one where I could
speak truthfully about my experiences." Her scathing wit is funny,
serious, intelligent, entertaining and thought provoking. A senior student
from NYU comments that "She is absolutely amazing. She has this
way of drawing in everyone around her - you're hooked and you can't
stop watching. And, every 15 minutes or so, you pick your jaw up off
the floor."
The National Slam Champion team has produced the upcoming
hip-hop CD, "Unbound", a compilation benefiting Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Alix slams at colleges and universities, did a stint on the West coast,
and has performed at the prestigious Harlem Apollo Theatre, the NYC
Gay and Lesbian Community Center and speaks-out at many other New York
City venues. CNN and numerous New York radio stations have interviewed
Alix, and a recent release is her own spoken-word recording.
The performance is free and open to the public. Moravian
College's Prosser Auditorium is located in the Haupert Union Building
at Locust and Monocacy streets in Bethlehem, PA. For more information,
call (610) 861-1461.
