Educational Background/Training
- BFA New York University Tisch School of the Arts
- New York University Artist In Residence Asian American Pacific Studies
- John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Teaching Artist
- Urban Word NYC
About the Artist/Ensemble
Regie Cabico is a spoken word pioneer having won The Nuyorican Poets Cafe Grand Slam and later taking top prizes in three National Poetry Slams. Television credits include 2 seasons of HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, NPR’s Snap Judgement & MTV’s Free Your Mind. His work appears in over 30 anthologies including Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café, Spoken Word Revolution & The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry. Literary journal publications include Poetry, Bellevue Literary Review, poets.org & Beltway Poetry Quarterly. Mr. Cabico received the 2006 Writers for Writers Award from Poets & Writers for his work teaching at-risk youth at Bellevue Hospital. As a theater artist he received three New York Innovative Theater Award Nominations for his work in Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind with a win for Best Performance Art Production The Kenyon Review recently named Regie Cabico the “Lady Gaga of Poetry” and he has been listed in BUST magazine’s 100 Men We Love. His solo play Godiva Dates & One Night Stands received critical acclaim at the 2013 Capital Fringe Festival. Mr. Cabico has shared the stage with Patti Smith, Allen Ginsberg and through Howard Zinn’s Portraits Project at NYU has performed with Stanley Tucci, Jesse Eisenberg & Lupe Fiasco. Mr. Cabico has received numerous fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts and The DC Commission for the Arts & Humanities.
Educational Program Description
- HIGH WATTAGE: ELEMENTS OF THE SLAM POEMIn these spoken word performance workshops, participants will use “imagery” to create a poems that incorporate pop culture & autobiography to celebrate “who we are” by exploring our dreams and our most fanciful urges. We will combine outrageous lies into hyperbole and use sense memory and experimental word play to invigorate our language. We will look at the poem as one explosive haiku and use the things that “drive us crazy” to propel us into performance. We will unlock the basic elements of poetry slam performance: vocal, physical gesture & eye contact—demystifying the page from the stage.This workshop is for middle and high school students as well as adults. Each session will include a 5-7 minute performance from the poet, two writing exercises, and several students coached on performance technique. It is recommended that the workshop take two sessions. One for writing and the other for the poetry slam.The poet will speak with the teacher or facilitator prior to the session in order to make the best use of the time.
- CHECK ONE (excerpt)
by Regie CabicoI could give you an epic about my ways of life or my look
and you want me to fill it in “one square box.”
From what integer or shape do you count existing identities,
grant loans for the mind, or crayola white census sheets-
There’s no “one kind” to fill for anyone.You tell me who I am, what gets the most money
and I’ll sing that song like a one-man caravan.
I know arias from Naples, Tunis, and Accra-
lullabyes from welfare, food-stamps, and natureand you want me to sing one song?
I have danced jigs with Jim Crow and shuffled my hips
to a sonic guitar of Clapton and Hendrix,
waltzed with dead lovers, skipped to bamboo sticks,
belleted kabuki and mimed cathacali
arrivedercied-a-rhumba and tapped Tin Pan Alley-
and you want me to dance the Bhagavad Gita
on a box to small for a thumbelina-thin diva?I’ll check “other”https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/regie-cabico
Audiences
- College/University Students
- Adults