By Edward Henderson
Spoken word poetry is experience a massive resurgence in the San Diego area featuring a nationally ranked slam team, seven active venues and hundreds of attendees each month. With this success comes the desire to expand and expose more people to the art form. This was the objective for the Jacobs Center’s Artist in Residence Gill Sotu when he came up with the innovative idea to blend spoken word and the opera.
‘Ordinary Magic’ is Sotu’s second production through the Jacobs Center and tells the story of Billie (Cedrice), an aspiring drummer trying to secure a job at a popular soul lounge amongst men who have their own agenda of what she should do with her life. The show will run at the Joan Kroc Theater on February 3rd and 4th.
“It’s something like nobody has ever seen before,” said Sotu. “I’m taking the depth and the humor of poetry mixed in with the beauty of the operatic voice and the coolness of soul music.”
The play is written in poetic language, featuring both rhyme schemes and plain speech with live music and opera singing provided by Malesha Taylor. HBO Def Jam Poet Ise Lyfe is directing the play, infusing the production with an authentic feel of the genre. With the thriving scene in San Diego, Sotu hope the spoken word community will come out and support the expansion of their craft.
“I want to push our culture forward. If they want to see it move, get bigger venues and funding, they have to show that this kind of stuff works.”
Sotu was inspired to blend the genres of spoken word and the opera after creating a relationship with the San Diego Opera. After expressing interest in learning more about the art form, Victoria Hamilton, his co-worker at Jacobs, brought him into a meeting with their executives. They admittedly were not familiar with spoken word, so Sotu shared his idea and performed a 15 minute impromptu set for them. They enjoyed it so much, the opera made themselves available to assist in any way they could with the production.
‘Ordinary Magic’ will be Sotu’s largest production to date, utilizing the size of the Joan Kroc stage, orchestra pit and 500 person seating to manifest his vision.
“I want to always bring spoken word to new areas and place where people have never seen it. With poetry, it had its hay day where it was in the forefront with Def Jam and we need to get it there again. It’s one of the rawest and realest forms of expression.”
In Sotu’s final pitch to readers, he asserts with confidence that attendees will be entertained, see something they’ve never seen in this melding of arts along with a great story, cast and music.
Ticket information for ‘Ordinary Magic’ is available at www.gilsotu.com/theatre
