Being at the top of the page, I hope you've spent a little bit of time to check out Shane Koyczan's spoken word poem "Beethoven". If not, the video should be linked above from YouTube.
The reason I chose this work to look at is because it stands very differently in comparison to the rest of his works that (at least) I've seen/heard him perform. The energy is much more intense in this, and flows directly through and into his words. In his works such as "Tomatoes", "To This Day", and "The Crickets Have Arthritis", his momentum is slower (in music terms, largo), and full of expectancy. I think the reason I've always enjoyed "Beethoven" so much was because it breaks what I think is my general heuristic of what his poems generally are: emotive, intimate performances that move with you slowly mostly, but sometimes quickly-- like a crescendo in a waltz.
This piece though feels like a trip downhill on a bike or running through a field.There are some slower portions, and these make me think that he simply "flipped" the format of his delivery. Moving from a slow-fast-slow, to a fast-slow-fast approach.
In my opinion, I think it works very well, and hopefully I come across more in this style.
No comments:
Post a Comment