UnFold | Dance By Sophia Thakur
Dance
By Sophia Thakur X UnFOLD
Brought to you by live curators Lyrix Organix, UnFOLD is an acclaimed 360 live concept led by some of Britain’s foremost young poets, rappers and change makers – inviting them to recast their words with a string ensemble, percussionists and visual artists.
On 4th October – National Poetry Day 2018, UnFOLD release ‘EP2’, a collection of tracks by the cream of the UK’s spoken word and poetry scene, including Solomon OB (National Slam Champion), Kieron Rennie (Barbican resident) and Toby Thompson (“Easily one of the most gifted wordsmiths” Akala). Existing in the space between language, music and illustration, the EP shifts between spoken word and contemporary classical, nu wave jazz and electronic instrumentation, speaking to audiences young and old with a sound that can be described as Ezra Collective meets Kate Tempest, dipped in strings and tabla.
To mark the EP, UnFold are due to drop series of tracks in lead up to the release, kicking off with the hugely inspiring ‘Dance’ by one of the scenes brightest young artists Sophia Thakur. In it Sophia exclaims to the listener not to forget to dance and lose yourself in the face of these uncertain times we face today. The playful live instrumentation which adds somewhat of a grime and even dancehall feel, comes courtesy of an illustrious group of musicians that includes Tanya Cracknell (The Grime Violinist), Camilo Tirado (James Holden, Nitin Sawhney, Talvin Singh) and Tim Doyle (Nubya Garcia, Chiminyo).
“I’m really excited to be involved with UnFOLD, and the opportunity to work with musicians so closely and actually compose with real life instruments and take it away from the laptop is incredible, it’s such a window for words to come to life. I prefer music sometimes to poetry so having the opportunity to combine the two was literally incredible. In terms of kicking it off with Dance, it was written for one of my best mates that passed away just over a year ago. He was a poet and he pushed me to do poetry and I’ve kept him in the focus point since graduating, which is when I first got involved with UnFOLD. the message itself is obviously to celebrate the nuances of life, to celebrate the niches of life, to celebrate and find the art of music in just about everything and he encapsulated that and UnFOLD encapsulates that and I’m trying to encapsulate that.”
Sophia Thakur
Submissions are open for all HeadStuff poetry categories, including Poem of The Week (Every Friday), Unbound (longer sequence of poems from a single poet), and New Voices (submissions from poets under the age of 30.) We accept both written, audio and video recorded poems as long as the quality of the audio and video is of a high standard.
Please see our Submissions page for more information.
