[ Wed May 23 12 ]

Friends and local poets Missy Church and Paul Corman-Roberts told me there was to be a traveling band of female poets up from LA for a couple nights of performance and that I should check it out. They’re called The Razor Babes, and I’m glad I listened.

I showed up early, before the doors opened, and got to listen in as they prepared for the show. I had no idea what to expect and was surprised to hear them, in an informal huddle at Boxcar Theatre, discussing their summer plans. Specifically, they were deciding when and how often to meet up to develop new material. What I hadn’t known was that The Razor Babes is a collective; the show they performed was all generated by a prompt: “journeys.”

In a lot of ways, this reminded me of Quiet Lightning because each piece followed seamlessly and without introduction; the show wasn’t written as a narrative but is performed as one. Each person responded to the prompt and sewed the show together with collaborative work that at times engages the audience directly and at others has one of the members “translating” the dance moves of another. It’s quite an impressive show.

Perhaps the neatest thing about The Babes is how they started… but I’ll let them tell you about that, as I hope to run an interview with them soon. For now, and as you can likely tell, the members of this collective come from various backgrounds and approach poetry and performance in vastly different ways.

Enjoy, and stay tuned for more.