A man OF HIS words
Regie Cabico speaks up for Calgary festival
Spoken word is a little bit duende, a little bit Judy Garland.
That’s how Regie Cabico describes it, anyway.
Cabico, a spoken word artist and teacher who lives in Washington, spends so much time in Calgary and Banff, he ought to perform wearing a white cowboy hat.
In May, he’ll be back in the U.S. capital, performing onstage at the Kennedy Center alongside John Legend. Back in the day, he performed his spoken word alongside Mos Def on HBO’S Def Poetry Jam.
In addition to performing, Cabico is much in demand as a mentor and teacher to up-and-coming spoken word artists, many of whom he teaches at an annual Banff Centre spoken word workshop created by Sheri D Wilson, Cabico’s longtime teaching collaborator.
“His teachings here (at Banff) have been very in tandem with mine,” Wilson says. “I think we work very well together.”
Now, Cabico sits in my kitchen, waiting for the marinara sauce to absorb a whack of diced garlic and onions.
Every April for a few years now, Cabico shows up on our doorstep for a few days, to billet with us as one of the performers and teachers participating in the Calgary International Spoken Word Festival.
It’s a little like ordering a spoken word performance takeout.
“Duende is hard to define,” he says (it’s a Sheri-d thing, apparently). “Lorca talked about duende.
“You can look at it,” he adds, “as a mischievous, magical creature. I look at it as danger.
“Duende,” he continues, “is the up against the wall moment that allows feathers to come out of your body.”
When the conversation starts to get a little bit surreal, you can be certain that the slamphony is coming to town.
That’s the Calgary International Spoken Word Festival, for the uninitiated, which kicks off today with a trio of downtown events, including a pair of sold-out youth slam at the library downtown followed by a night of spoken word at the Auburn Saloon.
What distinguishes the spoken word festival from other arts events in town is the way in which it connects to young people.
All week long, the library is going to be humming with sold out youth poetry slams.
At the same time, eight spoken word artists will be fanning out across the city, visiting three schools a day, where they will preach the gospel of spoken words to a generation of kids raised on digital.
“Spoken word is really accessible to youth,” says Mary Pinkoski, who captained Edmonton’s slam poetry team to the Canadian championship in 2011. “It gives them the freedom to do what they would like to do while being able to talk about the issues that are affecting them personally.
“It’s just,” she adds, “a really easy and not daunting way for them (young people) to get their voice out, and maybe speak in ways that they can’t speak in other forms.”
What makes this festival extra special is that thanks to Wilson and Cabico, it’s truly an interactive event, featuring many former stu- dents of Wilson’s and Cabico’s.
“It’s (the festival lineup) young this year,” Wilson says, “and part of that celebration (of youth) is the fact that there is (now, more than ever) a huge possibility of having a successful career (in spoken word) and (that), I think, is what I’m saying in the festival.”
According to Pinkoski, who now teaches as well, learning how to perform spoken word is a two part process: first Wilson pulls the poetry out of you. Then Cabico teaches you how to perform it.
“She’s been helping me ever since, just being an adviser,” Pinkoski says. “and (at) the beginning, (it) was a lot more on writing, and then it kind of switched to performing which Regie has also helped me a lot with.
“I definitely have received a lot of support and mentorship from both of them.”
Talk to Cabico, who teaches around North America, and he’ll break it down. “I think people need to know why they wrote something and they need to be in touch with it,” he says.
They also need to know how turn their hands into weapons when they are up onstage, using their words — not something a lot of literary types are necessarily expert at. “They (most beginning spoken word artists) don’t know what to do with their hands,” Cabico says. His teaching technique? “Watch Judy Garland,” he says.