Stratford artists mix poetry, rap and dance in Spoken Groove, part of Stratford Writers’ Festival

Stratford rapper Karim Rushdy, poet Heidi Sander and dancer Deltin Sejour will perform in Spoken Groove at the Here For Now Theatre Sept. 26 and 27, blending poetry, rap and dance as part of the Stratford Writers Festival.

A one-of-kind performance created by three talented Stratford artists will hit the stage at Here For Now Theatre Sept. 26 and 27, blending poetry, rap and dance as part of the Stratford Writers Festival.

Spoken Groove is described as a powerful, genre-blurring performance that weaves spoken word, dance and rap into one unified artistic experience. The performances flow between spoken-word poet Heidi Sander and dancer Deltin Sejour. Whether passed gesture by gesture at the poem’s close, or exchanged mid-verse in a fluid back-and-forth, the story moves between voice and form, as if the two are speaking in a shared, unspoken language. Finally, clean rapper Karim Rushdy reshapes the poem through flow, lyric and rhythm.

“I love collaborating with other artists and just having an intersection with the arts, so I wanted to do something unique and different this time,” Sander said. “I feel that there’s such a connection between poetry and spoken-word rap, so I reached out to Karim to see if he was interested; I love the fact that he does clean rap, so it’s very much community focused, which is what his work is all about, and mine is as well.

“ … He was interested and then I wanted to incorporate dance because I love dance. Karim put me in touch with Deltin and it’s been incredible.”

While Sander had a collection of poems and ideas she had been considering for this show already in mind, the process of developing Spoken Groove was very much a collaborative one, as each artist reframed those ideas and concepts from their own personal and artistic perspectives.

“At first, I was kind of shocked. I’m not going to rewrite somebody else’s work. It kind of felt maybe wrong,” Rushdy said. “But then Heidi was so open and welcoming and kept saying, ‘No, no, let’s do it. Make it yours.’ So, I felt really invited to bring what I do, and I said let’s have a session together in my studio, so that’s what we did. We did a few of those where we actually created pieces of music together because that’s my creative process – I write to music – and so we created something together. It was super fun and she was there guiding it, saying, ‘Yeah, I feel like that reflects the spirit of what my original poem is about.’ ”

Meanwhile, Sejour immersed himself in the words, lyrics and music being created to develop his own interpretation through movement. Ultimately, the show the trio developed is themed around the oneness of humanity, how we’re all connected and how each individual plays a part in that.

“The process that’s underneath all of this is that all three of us who are working on this interdisciplinary work are really interested in and really curious about community and how art has a relationship with community,” Sejour said. “That’s sort of underneath a lot of the work and it’s also part of why we can be so collaborative as a team because it’s sort of something that binds us together.

“ … I think it’s also really beautiful that the work is a very diverse work in the sense that it combines all of these different art forms, but also the people presenting are diverse. We have a woman, we have a Black person, we have an Egyptian, and I think to underly the overarching idea of unity, we’re all different just in the way that we look, and I think that would be very inspiring for an audience.”

Though Spoken Groove is already sold out for its Sept. 26 performance, tickets are still available for the Sept. 27 show. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit stratfordwritersfestival.com/event/spoken-groove/.