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Yara Arts Group Presents:
New York's Bowery Poetry Club
Live in Lviv & Kyiv
with:
Bob Holman,
Serhiy Zhadan
Kateryna Babkina
Susan Hwang
Julian Kytasty
and Virlana Tkacz
lights: by Yevhen Kopiov
projections by Waldemart Klyuzko
Sept 12,2013
Les Kurbas Theatre in Lviv
Sept 20, 2013
Kyiv-Mohyla Academy
On the event
Yara Arts Group created a series of special poetry events in Ukraine in September, 2013. The first was "New York's Poetry Club Live in Lviv" which featured Ukrainian and American poets and performers who have appeared at the legendary Bowery Poetry Club in New York.
Bob Holman, founder and proprietor of the Bowery Poetry Club, kicked off the evening by reading his own poems which were also read in Ukrainian translations by Kateryna Babkina.
Serhiy Zhadan was the first Ukrainian poet to read at the Bowery when he came to New York in 2005 to work with Yara on a show at La MaMa. He read several poems from that appearance, while I read the English translations I had done with Wanda Phipps.
Kateryna Babkina was the most recent Ukrainian poet to appear at the Bowery Poetry Club. She had read there when she came to work on our Poetry Video Event at Kinofest last April. Kateryna is a wickedly funny reader of her own poetry, while Susan Hwang and I read English translations I had done with Wanda.
Susan Hwang sang several original songs such as "Parking" with Julian Kytasty. Then Julian and I read several of our own poems and we concluded the event with all of us singing Susan's song "Crossroads" from the Smith play.
The event took place at the Kurbas Theatre in Lviv as part of the 20th Lviv Publishing Forum and was repeated at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy under the sponsorship of the US Embassy.
We put a chap book with many of the translations that can be acquired from Yara. We also did a presentation on Epic Songs, Dumas, Hip Hop and the Oral Tradition at the Honchar Museum in Kyiv.
More photos from the Bowery Poetry Club event: photos | book
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