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July 6, 2009 (07/06/09)
On July 6th 2009, Janet Kuypers performed her first feature at Waiting 4 the Bus (W4tB is an energetic, eclectic, electric poetry powerhouse that fires up on the 1st and 3rd Mondays of the month, hosted by Buddah309... Right by the Loop in downtown Chicago at Jaks Tap — the back room, 901 W. Jackson, Chicago IL 60035). This 7:30-10pm evening (starting late because of poet-time) had Kuypers as the only feature for the evening (when there are usually two features at Waiting 4 the Bus). After seeing one acts of play performances in Chicago 05/17/09 (where one was of a single man saying a story, like a prose poem), Kuypers realized that this show is exactly that — a series of “one acts”.
For this performance, Kuypers not only pulled a number of older never-read-before pieces of poetry and prose (including poetry and prose from 1991), but she also re-worked poetry to incorporate either “waiting”, or, more usually, “buses”. In addition to this altering of classic writings of hers (including poetry from the “He Told Me His Dreams” series), Kuypers wrote a number of brand new pieces of poetry and prose poetry for this show, including an extensive prose poem about conflicts with the United States and Russia (originally stylized while considering the Carolyn Forché poem “the Colonel”) for this show.
Not only is there brand-new written material for this show, but she also opted for using not only a new projection screen and the projector for showing off her artwork in this performance, but she even opted to “meditate” at a bus stop for this show (video from her meditating was also shown in this performance).
Vittorio Carli (of Mercury Cafe) even wrote about this Kuypers show at
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Kuypers also released a chapbook of the poems
and prose “one acts” (sorted in the order read).
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During the live performance at Waiting 4 the Bus, Kuypers had two computer screens and two photo image framesa with rotating images in them (along with The Key To Believing Bear), displayed below the large projector screen of images related to the performance. While wearing her husband’s Marine Corps dog tags, Kuypers performed both poems and prose oems while both iamges and video clips were displayed on the projected screen. Also included in the live show were backgrouns noises of buses running. Each piece also started with the sampling of the words “Get on to the bus” from “Bus to Beelzebub” by Soul Coughing (off thealbum Irresistable Bliss)... and during the second part of the last piece in the show (Hurry Up and Wait), meditation music ( “Sante Dei,” sampled from a Meditation Music CD) played.
Although lighting was dark for the performer to be well viewed on film, you can see samples of images (and hear the full performanceas well) with the links below.
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...on to the show:
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