2018 Xabiso Vili Re/member Your Descendants

re/member your descendants dc tour 2018

XABISO VILI

#AzaniaToDC

4/18 feature performance @ Busboys and Poets 5th & K Open Mic
8:45pm – 11:00pm $5
Details on event page.

4/19 presentation and performance @ Hillyer Art Space Culture Blast
7:00pm – 9:00pm $Free
Details on event page.

Hillyer Art Space, International Arts & Artists
9 Hillyer Ct. NW, Washington, DC 20008 (rear alley)
Dupont Circle Metro
http://athillyer.org/

Re/member Your Descendants — South African poet and performance artist Xabiso Vili leads a performance and discussion around communicating with ancestors, finding and living one’s purpose, and creating a valued legacy for our descendants. https://www.facebook.com/events/1844544255579524/

4/21 feature performance @ Busboys and Poets 5th & K Youth Open Mic
4:30pm – 7:00pm $5
Busboys and Poets 5th & K
1025 5th Street NW, Washington, DC 20001
Mt. Vernon Square Metro

4/24 opening act @ Beltway Poetry Slam Finals featuring FreeQuency
8:00pm – 11:00pm $5
Busboys and Poets Brookland
625 Monroe Street NE, Washington, DC 20017
Brookland/CUA Metro

4/28 Opening ceremonies performance @ Louder Than a Bomb DMV Teen Poetry Slam Festival
11:00am $Free more info.
Wilson High School, 3950 Chesapeake St NW, Washington, DC 20016
Tenleytown/AU Metro

4/28 short performance long celebration @ South African Freedom Day Braai/Picnic
3:00pm – 6:00pm $Free
Details here.
Savage Park, 8200 Fair Street, Savage, MD 20763

4/29 Poetry Workshop @ Hillyer Art Space with the Poetry Teaching Artist Training Project
1:00pm – 5:00pm $Free
Hillyer Art Space, International Arts & Artists
9 Hillyer Ct. NW, Washington, DC 20008 (rear alley)
Dupont Circle Metro

HOME

5/4 May the Fourth Be With You – House Party
10:00pm – late $Donations Welcome
Contact JBT for details.

5/8 feature performance @ La Ti Do
8:00pm – 10:00pm $5

Bistro Bistro
1727 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington, DC 20009
Dupont Circle Metro
www.latidoproductions.com

RE/MEMBER YOUR DESCENDANTS

If it’s true that when we call upon our ancestors they assist us with the skills they were most adept at in the physical plane, the question becomes what will we become ancestors of and what will our descendants call upon us for? Xabiso Vili explores this question with the audience in the hopes that we can better understand ourselves, our collective histories, and our collective futures.

#AZANIATODC

XABISO VILI is a performer, writer, TEDx speaker, and social activist, currently working in the City of Tshwane/Pretoria, South Africa. His writings help him explore his inner world so as to be able to relate better to the outer world. He is the Pretoria Spoken Sessions Slam League Champion 2015/16 and the Speak Out Loud Youth Poetry Competition Champion 2015. He has also represented the Eastern Cape in the Lover + Another Regional Poetry Slam 2011, and in 2013 he won the Gauteng Regional Slam and placed 3rd at the South African National Poetry Slam. Xabiso was the Word N Sound Poet-of-the-Year in 2014 and 2015, and won the Perfect Poem Award from Word N Sound in 2016 for Black Boi Be.

Xabiso has been published in various anthologies and online, including SACE High School anthologies (2008, 2009, and 2010), Black Communion, Poetry Potion, Badilisha Poetry X-Change, Sky and Dust, and most recently, Myesha Jenkins’ To Breathe Into Another Voice. He has performed all over South Africa, including Cape Town, Grahamstown, Johannesburg, and Pretoria, and in the UK, the US, and India. He strongly believes that art influences his community positively and thus is constantly working towards creating alternative stages for art to be shared in innovative ways.

As a teaching artist Xabiso runs writing, performance, and event organizing workshops and has co-founded Scribe Rites, a writing collective aimed at advancing the reach of writing and performance through somatic practices and academic/activist overlap. He also works in abandoned spaces to create art hubs and creative centres of change. He has recently released his African contemporary lounge and spoken word fusion album, Eating My Skin, created in collaboration with producers, the Favela Ninjas. He is now touring his one-person show, Black Boi Be.

PRESS

The Sunday Times, June 2017

Word N Sound, January 2017

AUDIO

VIDEO