REVIEW – THE HAIR WRAP DIARIES

Posted on April 25, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged African, afro, Alynda Wheat, Antonia Cooper, Barbershp Chronicles, black hair, black women, Bola Agaje, Caribbean, Chris Rock, dialogue, Emmanuella Idris, hair, hairdresser, Head Wrap Diaries, heritage, house, identity, Natalie Cooper, performance, review, roots, Shanelle Clemenson, show, story, theatre, Uchenna dance, Vicki Igbokwe, vogue, Waacking, women, Yolanda Perez-Rosselson.

by Carmina Masoliver

Piles of colourful patterned fabrics line the stage, and three women dressed in black Lycra leotards select a fabric and wrap it around their head. The fabrics are drawn across the stage as the performers’ bodies undulate in a backwards crawl, before the scene is set as a hair salon with the colours swept away in a swirl around a chair.

As the title The Hair Wrap Diaries suggests, during this Uchenna Dance production written by Bola Agaje in partnership with director and choreographer Vicki Igbokwe, we hear different stories from each performer. Yet the show is also interspersed with dance, giving it a strong sense of poetics as the words are broken up and repeated with the movements. The stories themselves are carefully selected, offering a rainbow of different generations of black women, exploring their relationship with hair.Continue Reading

REVIEW: BRIDGES @ SPACE STUDIOS NORWICH

Posted on August 23, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Arts, Community and tagged allery space, art, arts review, audiovisual media, Bridges, colonialism, colonisation, cultural interaction, culture, curation, dialogue, discussion, displacement, history, humanitarian issues, ignorance, informal, installation, Karis Upton, Marcia X, migration, morality, norwich, painting, personal is political, perspective, political art, politics, privilege, refuge, refugee crisis, refugees, review, Rosie Smith, social theory, Space Studios, studio space, The Barber Shop.

by Laura Potts

‘If anything, art is…about morals, about our belief in humanity.
Without that, there simply is no art’
Ai Weiwei

Norwich’s own Space Studios hosted Bridges, a fascinating exhibition by artists Marcia X and Karis Upton, earlier this month. Entering through a small alley, I climb stairs up to the first few works, which I find in a dark setting, immersing me in the exhibition. Up another staircase, long enough for me to begin reflecting on what I’ve seen, is a much lighter space, with works hung from the sloped ceiling. Afterward, I’ll go on reflecting for some time – the themes and issues that Bridges explores are of such magnitude that every viewer is forced to sit up and listen.

ITALY’S FASCIST WATERMELON

Posted on July 20, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Inter|national and tagged ANPI, Beppe Grillo, Casapound, Cécile Kyenge, centrism, colonialism, dialogue, education, Emanuele Fiano, Emmanuel Chidi Namdi, Erdogan, EU, Europe, fascism, Forza Nuova, Generazion Identitaria, Igiaba Scego, imperialism, Italy, Matteo Salvini, Mediterranean, metaphor, migration, Mussolini, NGOs, ONG, Orban, partisan resistance, politics, propaganda, putin, racism, refugee, school, Trump, UE.

by Alex Valente

CW: racism, sexism, fascism

There’s an old home-grown metaphor that runs in the Italian side of my family – which may have been acquired by my great-grandfather through his context and peers, I just have never heard it anywhere else – which goes as follows:

Italy is a watermelon. The thick, green skin on the outside is democracy, the Republic. The thin white layer that keeps everything inside together is the Democrazia Cristiana (Christian Democracy, the centre party that governed Italy after WWII, and the ancestor of pretty much all centrist politicians since). The red pulp is the Socialist, Communist heart of the country. But the seed, the black seed from which it all grows – that’s Fascism.

REVIEW: AN ABUNDANCE OF KATHERINES, BY JOHN GREEN

Posted on September 30, 2016 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged ableism, adaptation, an abundance of katherines, author, bestseller, book, colin, dehumanisation, dialogue, entitlement, expectations, fault in our stars, film, hassan, humour, John Green, language, literature, love, makeup, meditation, mysogyny, okay, reading, relationship, review, romance, sexism, tampons, teen, teenagers, travel, writing, YA fiction.

by Carmina Masoliver

I picked this book up on my travels from a Silent Meditation Retreat in Ubud, Bali. Reading a good book is like meditation for those of us whose minds won’t shut up. It’s something I know I should do more, especially as an English Literature graduate and as a writer. But in the age of social media, I find myself clicking on different articles deep into the night instead. That said, a good writer will keep you hooked enough to pull you away from such distractions.

I had read John Green’s The Fault In Our Stars, which rightfully brought him to critical acclaim (as well as a film deal). An Abundance of Katherines was first published ten years ago, but is seeing a revival now that Green is a bestselling author. I felt excited to start reading it, and I enjoyed it so much that I made sure I had a copy waiting for me when I returned home, in between jetting off to Spain, where I’m now living.Continue Reading

SIGNAL BOOST: CAN TRANSLATION BE RADICAL?

Posted on May 3, 2015 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged conflict, conversation, creative writing, culture, dialogue, ideas, identity, italian, Italy, poem, poetry, publication, radical, sex, translation, translator, translators, women, women writers, writers.

by Alex Valente, in conversation with Cadi Cliff

This conversation starts in Norwich. The fault is mine, of course, as I start doubting my place within the Norwich Radical, and the role that I, as a translator of poetry, could possibly play in a radical, progressive, critical publication. Enter Cadi Cliff, editor and co-founder, green radical, and a mountain range of humanity.

This conversation, then, is a dialogue of sorts; a voicing of those doubts, translator to editor, reader to reader, uncertain radical to radical, on the place of translation, and poetry, within these virtual walls.

IMPATIENT OF THE FEWEST WORDS

Posted on August 9, 2014 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged arts, biagini, creative writing, dialogue, emily dickinson, italian, italian women in translation, paul celan, poetry, translation, writers.

by Alex Valente.

Original Italian by Elisa Biagini (1970 – )

(dialogue between Emily and Paul*)

Standing, on the threshold
my eye in your
hand, your tongue
on my ear:Continue Reading

dialogue

REVIEW – THE HAIR WRAP DIARIES

ITALY’S FASCIST WATERMELON

REVIEW: AN ABUNDANCE OF KATHERINES, BY JOHN GREEN

SIGNAL BOOST: CAN TRANSLATION BE RADICAL?

IMPATIENT OF THE FEWEST WORDS

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