Language sparks - inspiring duos with poetry, music, dance and images

Featuring: poet Benzokarim and singer-song poet Mirte Hartland, poet Rosabelle Illes and cellist Saartje Van Camp, poet ZaÏre Krieger and dancer Shaquille George.

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Information

Date and time Friday 24 January 2025 22:30 tot 23:30 uur
Location Theater aan het Spui - Zaal 1
Price SOLD OUT

Writers Unlimited likes to make new connections between artists from different disciplines who then create something new together. In this unique, one-off programme Taalvonken, poetry, music and dance entered into dialogue with each other. Three duos presented new work they created especially for this festival night at the request of Writers Unlimited. Note: Dutch spoken.

You witnessed how sparks flew between language and music, and between spoken word and dance. Singer-song poet on guitar Mirte Hartland interacted with poet Benzokarim.

Poet and spoken word artist Rosabelle Illes entered into a dialogue with a new song by cellist, singer and theatre-maker Saartje Van Camp, taken from her new album In De Naam Van, released during this festival edition on 24 January 2025.

Poet and spoken-word artist ZaÏre Krieger and dancer Shaquille George found each other in the movements of dance.

Taalvonken was curated for Writers Unlimited Festival 2025 by Ilonka Reintjens.

Line-up

Rosabelle Illes

(Aruba, 1987) is an artist, writer, and performer. She has authored three collections of poetry and short stories and co-authored the multilingual children’s book Hearty. Her work has been published in international journals, and she has performed at literary festivals worldwide, including Colombia, Taiwan, The Netherlands, and New York City. Rosabelle’s art often explores personal enigmas, with meditation revealing insights that manifest as poetry. She holds a PhD in Psychology from Leiden University and is an assistant professor at the University of Aruba. Her upcoming book, Penmanship (2025), blends her passions for psychology and poetry, celebrating the written word in its purest form. Featuring handwritten pieces, the book sparks a conversation about the scientifically proven benefits of handwriting and showcases how poetry can transcend traditional confines of the page to be heard, seen, and worn.
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Benzokarim

(1996) is a poet and performer. In 2022, he won the El Hizjra literature prize for poetry and published his debut collection El Ghorba. In it, he talks to his father, mourns his mother and writes poetry about experiences that are recognisable to anyone with a migrant background. His second collection, Ons gaan allemaal (We're all going), has been awarded with the Jan Campert Prize 2025, yearly prize for poetry. As coach of Poetry Circle 070 and editor of Mensen Zeggen Dingen, he is working hard to pave the way for a new generation of world improvers. Benzokarim is Rotterdam's City Poet in 2025 and 2026.

Bekijk de website van Benzokarim
Instagram: @benzokarim_
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Zaïre Krieger

(1995) is a poet, spoken word artist, activist, journalist and translator. In 2019, she received a SPOKEN Award as ‘one of the most inspiring Dutch word artists of the moment’. Krieger's work expresses a call for justice and love. In 2020, she co-organised a Black Lives Matter protest in Rotterdam. Her performances are layered, rhythmic and sincere. She translated the poem The Hill We Climb recited by Amanda Gorman during Joe Biden's inauguration into Dutch. The bilingual edition was released in 2022. In 2023, also bilingual, Gorman's collection Call Us What We Carry was published in Krieger and Tirsa With's translation. In 2025, Krieger's bilingual poetry collection Chameleon will be published, about creating your own place to feel at home, allowing yourself to be multidimensional, about the opposition between activism and aesthetics, queerness and religion, loving and hating, about being Black in a white world.
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Mirte Hartland

(The Netherlands) is singer-song poet on guitar. Juggling sung and spoken word, guitar and vocals, she explores where music and poetry reinforce each other. Solo and in collaboration with makers from other disciplines. Her work consists of a carefully composed collage of atmospheres and images with melancholic undertones. Her work deals with themes such as radical equality, queer love, the relationship between man and nature and the beauty of the everyday. From personal vulnerability, she relates to social issues. Mirte has written, created and performed at the intersection of poetry and music for venues and festivals as diverse as Oerol, Lowlands and De Parade.
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Saartje Van Camp

(The Netherlands) makes Dutch-language pop music with lyrics and melodies that seem to come from a world all their own. A world in between everything. Between the obvious and the strange. Between what is and what could have been. Between Flanders where she is from and the Netherlands where she lives. A concussion, an everyday conversation in a shop, standing still in a traffic jam, the silent protest of women dressed in white on a square in Minsk, everything can be a song in Saartje Van Camp's world. Saartje is a cellist and singer and has worked with Spinvis for years. Now she is coming out with her own work. Her album In De Naam Van will be released on 24 January 2025. During Writers Unlimited Festival 2025, she and Judith Rijsenbrij will play a few songs from it in the festival event Van Dis Ongefilterd on Sunday morning 26 January.
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Shaquille George

was born and raised in Curaçao and moved to the Netherlands at the age of 18. Them started teaching themselves movement styles with Hip Hop origins and later obtained their BA in Urban Contemporary Dance at the Fontys Hogeschool voor de Kunsten. Here, they learned to mix contemporary dance styles with Hip Hop, which added to their own movement style. After collaborating with various companies and choreographers at home and abroad, Shaquille developed their own movement style called ‘Emotive Flux’. Their creative process involves stacking emotions and tackling topics they feel deserve discussion or exploration, with the aim of promoting dialogue and deeper understanding. Shaquille believes in mixing different dance disciplines loaded with emotional value. Dance is not only an art form, but also a freedom of expression and an outlet for emotions. Them lives and works in Rotterdam.
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