Takeo at Urban Word

G'day, everybody...

New York City is simply too big and too rich of a location to fully describe; its breadth, its density through anonymity rushes into my pores every time I walk down the street or take the subway. I love it here. As a creative writer, I can see why so many artistic movements have been generated in this city; literally every square inch of this metropolis is a story laced with hope, ruin, and indefatigability.

Urban Word is no exception. Located on the third floor of a midtown studio building, the space is essentially a community center for youth spoken word artists. The organization spends much time and energy holding workshops, open mics, programs, etc. for teen and college-age spoken word artists in the NYC area, but also grassroots organizing, encouraging the students to be activists in their communities. Being an “intern” here is not sharply defined; seeing how it’s a pretty chill nonprofit, no one has clearly defined “roles” necessarily (something that their director wants to correct, but things haven’t changed too much from what I can gather); everyone sort of pitches in communally. They’re for the most part young, too: my supervisor is just a year older than me. The arrangement I have with the organization as a whole is sort of interesting... In exchange for interning and helping them with random logistical things, I conduct my research, which is a combination of ethnographic study and interviews for my senior thesis. In terms of the work, so far I’ve done only data entry, spending hours typing contact information for youth spoken word artists. But I’m to attend the multiplicity of events that they host: tonight I’ll be attending their completely youth-run open mic, where I will conduct more research and perhaps perform myself.

I'm afraid I can't sure too much from the research end, due to IRB ethics and whatnot, but suffice to say that it revolves around spoken word as a medium of art producing spaces of community where the multiplicities of identity are performed and re-mapped through the creation of the carnivalesque. From that end it's going fascinatingly. I won't share my field notes but I might post more creative responses in the future...