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about my spoken word performances...- David Caddy, Tears in the Fence:
Hannah’s work is continually evolving and widening its scope. Her work occupies a fascinating space that draws upon sound poetry, music and theatre. Similar to sound poets and performers in the Sixties and Seventies, her work is open, engaging, theatrical and wonderfully musical. She is able to attract and hold quite diverse audiences. In particular, she has the ability to attract those people that might not have seen such a versatile live performer. I greatly admire Hannah’s ability to develop new work, ideas and audiences. She is a rare talent.
-The Times, Top Ten Literary Stars of 2008:
Her physical performances, fast-talking delivery and innovative use of cut-up text make her one of the most ambitious and entertaining poets in the country.
- Sound and Music, Ashley Wong:
I was particularly impressed by Hannah Silva’s cut up spoken word poetry that began as a nervous introduction of herself and then spiralled into a cryptic play of words and the expression of speech by using only the same words used in her first intro. It played on the psychological understanding and meaning of tones and words spliced together almost at random and expressing something quite new.
-Baroque in Hackney, Katy Evans Bush:
It was really quite astonishing. A really good take on what the meanings are of language itself, as an entity. Her shtick was to make her own speech sound like a recording – a recording manipulated, at that. You don’t get this in the usual poetry readings I go to – not the performancey ones, either.
-Gists and Piths, Simon Turner, on Threshold:
A headon collision between Bob Cobbing and Alice Oswald. Silva’s work is extremely exciting, representing as it does a marriage of performance poetics, and more ‘academic’ tendencies in modern poetry. The results were/are invigorating.
Jenni Doherty, Guildhall Press:
PAST PERFORMANCES
Sun 28 Mar
LONDON WORD FESTIVAL: LEAFCUTTER JOHN: BRIGGFLATTS REWIRED
+ Peter Finch
+ MacGillivray
+ Hannah Silva
Stoke Newington International Airport | £6.50 adv / £8 door | 7pm
PRAGUE: THE ALCHEMY READING & PERFORMANCE SERIES
5th April: Hannah Silva.
The Alchemy Reading & Performance Series is an eclectic mix of poetry, prose, music and more.
Since 2002, Alchemy has presented new and unique voices from the Czech Republic and abroad. Each evening features a guest reader or performer, followed by a lively open mic.
Events take place on the 1st Monday of every month starting at 8 p.m. at the Globe Bookstore and Café, Prague.
Admission is free! But get there early if you want a seat.
APPLES & SNAKES at THE GALLERY SESSIONS
Apples & Snakes brings the UK's finest performance poets to the Gallery Sessions. Headlining tonight's event is Jacob Sam-La Rose, a poet of striking charisma and intelligence whose roles as a writer, performer, playwright and educator make him one of the hardest working artists on the scene.
He will be joined by five times winner of the Foyle Young Poets of the Year competition Helen Mort, purveyor of reggae-infused rhyme El Crisis, and Hannah Silva, whose unique physical, fast-talking style is making her a rising star. Hosted by Naomi Woddis.
When: Wednesday 28 October, 8pm
Where: Gallery Café, Queens Theatre, Boutport Street, Barnstaple, Devon EX31 1SY
Tickets: £8.50 / £5 concessions
Book: 01271 324242 or www.northdevontheatres.org.uk
PANOPTICON
Shown at 'In the Flesh', Barbican, Plymouth, Nov2009.
A solo multimedia poetry/theatre performance. 'Panopticon' is named after an architectural model designed by the Benthams in the 18th century around the central principle of 'seeing without being seen'. The Panopticon was originally conceived as a possible model for a school, a factory, a hospital or of course...a prison.
Panopticon is a darkly humorous investigation of language, solitude, belonging, and what it is to be British:
'Being a British Citizen is a meaningful and celebratory event not a bureaucratic experience!'.
Boat on the Water: SUMMER 2009
Site specific performance: poetry, dance and theatre on a boat big enough for eight in Plymouth.
You Said/I Said: 14-16th August 2009
Summer Sundae Weekender in Leicester.Phrased & Confused commissioned myself and the composer Alexis Kirke to create a spoken word/musical multimedia feast that responds to the question: Which comes first? The Music or the Words?
You Said/I Said asks....if the poet is the words and the percussionist is the music, what would happen if the two of us got together? What kind of a relationship might we have? How would we communicate with each other and an audience? What happens when my speech becomes rhythm and his rhythm starts to communicate?
In a fifteen minute show, with Alexis behind the drum kit, me in front, and projection behind us both we tell the story of our dysfunctional relationship and try to figure out what it was that brought us together then drove us apart - Was it the Words or the Music?
A documentary from the festival can be viewed Here
Commissioned by The Hub for Phrased & Confused and funded by Arts Council England
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