An immersive, dynamic space where artist and audience can connect through words.
Manchester Literature Festival’s Young Producers Collective bring together a range of multidisciplinary artists to celebrate and explore how we tell stories. Taking words from the page to the stage, FLUX re-engages people with the form, creating an immersive, dynamic space where artist and audience can connect through words.
Join us for a night of storytelling, spoken word, DJs and live projection art, featuring Testament, Keisha Thompson, Sean Clarke, and Amerah Saleh with more to be announced.
Access
This event will be BSL interpreted.
If you have any access needs you want to discuss with us, please call the box office Monday to Friday between 10 – 10pm on 0161 274 0600.
Alternatively, you can email the box office on boxoffice@contactmcr.com, or get in touch via direct message on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram (@contactmcr on all three platforms).
Content Warnings
Full warnings to be confirmed, but including depictions of war conflict, childhood trauma, racism, mental illness, abuse and addiction.
Testament
Testament is an acclaimed rapper, playwright and world record-holding beatboxer based in West Yorkshire. His work includes the Hip-Hop album Homecut: No Freedom Without Sacrifice, spoken word performances for radio and television and the celebrated play Black Men Walking (nominated for Best Play at The Writers Guild Awards 2019 & Best New Play at the UK Theatre Awards 2020). His radio play The Beatboxer was nominated for the Imison Award at the BBC Audio Drama Awards 2020.
Testament was Channel 4 writer-in-residence at Royal Exchange Theatre Manchester and his show Orpheus In The Record Shop was broadcast on BBC Television in 2021 is available on BBC iPlayer. Testament’s writing has been published in several anthologies and has been used as a teaching resource internationally.
Twitter: @testamentonline
Keisha Thompson
Keisha Thompson is a Manchester-based writer, performance artist and producer. Keisha is the Senior Learning Programme Manager for The World Reimagined of Children, Chair of radical arts funding body, Future’s Venture Foundation, a MOBO x London Theatre Consortium Fellow and a member of Greater Manchester Cultural and Heritage Group, and recipient of The Arts Foundation Theatre Makers Award 2021.
Twitter: @keke_thom
Instagram: @shebekeke
Sean Clarke
Sean Clarke is a Digital Artist, who specialises in real-time audiovisual performance and lighting design. Skilled in tools such as Touchdisigner, Resolume and Notch, he creates, instals and operates bespoke AV shows for artists, venues and festivals. Residing in Manchester for over ten years, he has become a key figure in Manchesters’ digital art & DIY performance community, supporting the growth of artists by founding projects such as Test Card & DRIFT. Learn more at Sean’s website.
Instagram: @test_card_mcr
Instagram: digital_strawb
Amerah Saleh
Amerah Saleh is a spoken word artist who mixes passion with fiery intelligence and an uncanny insight into what it is to be human. Championing the Birmingham Poetry scene, her writing and performance has been stunning audiences for quite some time. She is the co-founder of Verve Poetry Press and a Board Member at Apples & Snake. Amerah has performed all around Europe and has released her first collection called ‘I Am Not From Here’. Her work touches on identity, womanhood, religion and the obscure idea of belonging only to one place.
Twitter: @voiceofthepoets
Instagram: @voiceofthepoets
Romina Ramos
Romina Ramos is a gender fluid Portuguese poet based in Bolton. In 2020 Romina’s work was shortlisted for the Merky Books New Writers’ Prize and broadcast on SoHo Radio. In 2021 their work was shortlisted for the Bridport Prize for poetry. They mainly write about identity, dislocation, belonging and sexuality/gender issues.
Instagram: @romina_writes
Nathan Parker
Nathan Parker working-class grit and Northern wit. A spoken artist from Blackpool, his work channels lived experience of life as a northerner. Champions for men’s mental health and the working class.
Instagram: @parkerword
Rory Aaron
Rory is a published writer, director and performance artist from Derby, with an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Manchester. In 2020, whilst on the BBC New Creatives development programme, he published his first poetry collection with Bearded Badger publishers and was nominated for the Apples and Snakes Jerwood fellowship award. He recently directed his first show, ‘The House Is On Fire,’ with Contact, and Derby Theatre has commissioned him to develop his long narrative poem ‘This Town’ into a show for spring 2023. He has recently been awarded The Big Imaginations fund from Z-Arts and will have his first collection of short stories published at the end of the year.
He is currently being funded by the Arts Council for his second collection of poetry Notes on Growing Up.
Instagram: @RORY.AARON
Simone
The founder and resident Natterbox of Long Story Short. An open mic storytelling event to celebrate the talented and everyday people through immersive storytelling. It was born out of a passion to give you the platform to find your voice. Share true stories and most importantly your narrative through a theme that connects us all. Without communication, we can’t relate, connect, empathise, influence and empower others to speak up. Expect an honest, unpretentious evening of exchange.
Instagram: @longstoryshortmcr
Sonya Carassik Ratty
Sonya Carassik Ratty is a writer and editor living in Manchester. Her work includes poetry, image/text collaboration and fiction. 2022 sees the publication of ‘A Stranger in my Mother’s Kitchen’ (Dewey Lewis), a meditation on grief by photographer Celine Marchbank with text editing by Sonya.
Instagram: @sonya_carra
Jordan Skelly
Jordan is a poet, writer, theatre-maker and performer from Manchester who has worked with contact theatre, MIF and Royal Exchange. Poetry forms the core of their practice, using lyrical language and lilting rhyme schemes to explore the beauty and horror of the world around us. They draw on their working-class experience to dissect injustices and issues that are pertinent to changes we need to see. Being a bisexual Gemini, they love to play within the binary and fight against it. They perform over music to add a new depth to their work and to shake people’s perception for what poetry can be.
Instagram: @Poetic__Fallacy
Georgie Brooke
Georgie writes poetry about the overlaps between identity, self-growth and queerness. They completed their BA in English at the University of Bristol, before completing an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Manchester. They are the founder of Chatback Poetry, a series of poetry workshops and zines investigating how young people can be encouraged to develop their self-expression through poetry funded by The Arts for Recovery Centre. They has been published in a number of anthologies including Mancanthology, Disobedient magazine and I, Enheduanna. They are interested in permeating the static spaces between music and spoken word poetry to make a new way to communicate, and reviews for The Quietus, Clash Magazine and Metal magazine.
Instagram: spenglerr_
Gabby Colvin
Gabby Colvin is a Manchester-based writer, director, and performance artist. She has recently graduated from the University of Manchester and cut her teeth on the performance poetry scene through local arts night, Address-it. Aiming to bring laughter as well as insight, Gabby enjoys speaking through the voices of different characters as well as utilising her own through her writing.
About the MLF Young Producers Collective
Manchester Literature Festival’s new Young Producers Collective have launched with their trailblazing event titled, FLUX. Using storytelling as a tool to collaborate in imagining the future they’d like to see, these young producers will provide opportunities for upcoming artists to have an equal platform alongside established voices. MLF’s Young Producer’s Programme provides 16-25-year-olds the opportunity to curate and deliver an event for MLF. Young Producers are given a budget, support and guidance to help bring their event ideas to life. In previous years, MLF have welcomed engaging and inspiring writers, musicians, artists, illustrators, poets and activists into the Programme, including Inua Ellams, Neil Gaiman, Danez Smith, Nikesh Shukla, Kae Tempest, Guy Garvey, Ocean Vuong and Carrie Brownstein (Sleater-Kinney), Angela Davis, Reni Eddo-Lodge, Patrisse Khan-Cullors (Black Lives Matter co-founder) and Slay in Your Lane.
About Manchester Literature Festival
One of the North West’s most innovative literary festivals, Manchester Literature Festival (MLF) specialises in showcasing and commissioning imaginative writing from fiction and poetry to secular sermons. A firm believer in the transformative power of words and stories, MLF’s annual Festival includes some of the most interesting voices in fiction, poetry, literature in translation, song-writing, activism and culture. MLFs’ Young People’s Steering Group sits alongside Manchester Literature Festival’s Board of Trustees and helps to ensure that MLF’s programming and artist development activities are relevant to and meet the needs of young people. www.manchesterliteraturefestival.co.uk
