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Literature is a living body, changing and transforming over time, challenging its origins, envisioning its future. In the last decade, there has been a significant interest in the way literature can escape from the page and reach a wider audience. A more performative, mixed-media approach to writing and reading has started to flourish, encouraging writers to perform their work and/or collaborate with other artists in order to present it, thus stretching the boundaries of what literature is or can be in the 21st century, on the page, on the stage, and, in Covid-19 times, even online. Revisiting Slam Poetry, which first appeared in the 1980s, or even the rhythm of words by the Beat Generation in the 1950s, more and more events and festivals around the world include mixed-media and experimental acts in their programmes, combining words with technology, visual art, sound/music, contemporary dance, sound poetry, visual poetry and so on. However, only a few festivals around the world are focusing exclusively on such an interdisciplinary identity of literature. MIXTAPE online platform is a collaboration between SARDAM interdisciplinary literature festival (founded in 2013) and the Cultural Section of the Cyprus High Commission in the UK, aiming at showcasing the work of Cypriot and international writers-performers. The programme includes both Cypriot and international participants in order to present a variety of online acts, while also bringing the writing community of Cyprus in dialogue with interdisciplinary approaches that are popular in other countries. MIXTAPE offers a taste of several trends related to literature and literary performance, including videos of spoken word (slamming), sound poetry, visual poetry, literature in relation to video art, literature in relation to sound/music, as well as conversations about writing and literary performance and an online creative writing workshop. In such uncertain, absurd times, MIXTAPE comes to remind us that we are all in this together, and no matter what happens, words will always be the way to bear, shake and change things.  

 

Dr Maria A. Ioannou