On Thursday, April 10th, Bigelow 7th graders were invited to watch and participate in the engaging and inspirational performance of the Mayhem Poets. The Mayhem Poets offer timely, youthful, humorous, and hip spoken word poetry that reflects the thoughts, issues, and concerns of young people today.
“Let’s go see a poetry show.” That is a sentence rarely proclaimed and usually responded to with cringes and excuses. The Mayhem Poets are on a mission to change that. Having been dubbed “an amazing ride” by the New York Times, this mind boggling performance has been described as “The Simpsons meets Malcolm X at a Notorious B.I.G. concert”. These theatre-trained, comedically-gifted, lyrical virtuosos seamlessly blend raw elements of hip hop, theatre, improv and stand-up comedy to tell gut-wrenching truths that leave audiences forever changed.
The Mayhem Poet’s unique approach to spoken word has landed them feature spots on The Today Show and Eyewitness News, after winning 1st place and a grant for 100K in the Microsoft Idea Wins Challenge in 2006. Since then they’ve been touring internationally from legendary venues like Lincoln Center, the Apollo Theatre, and Broadway’s New Victory Theatre; to hundreds of universities and local schools of all grades.
Please see below videos from their performance at Bigelow as well as samples of their events:
Bigelow Video 1
Bigelow Video 2
Video Sample (22 minutes) (performance/audience participation)
Video Sample – short (audience participation)
Video Sample – short (performance)
Creative Arts and Sciences (CAS) presentations are made possible by your generous donations to the PTO. Thank you!