International Women's Day 2018 - Speaking Up: Sharing Women's Stories

To kick off our week of International Women's Day events this year we are hosting a creative evening of poetry and storytelling and would love for you to join us.

This year the theme of International Women's Day is #PressForProgress. Our performers are strong advocates for this and while we know that gender parity won't happen overnight, we believe that gathering together to share poems and stories will help us to motivate and unite friends, colleagues and communities to think, act and be gender inclusive.

We are delighted that we will have performances from:

The Sophia Forum

The Sophia Forum promotes and advocates for the rights, health, welfare and dignity of women living with HIV through research, raising awareness and influencing policy. They do this through developing and delivering their advocacy programme; bringing together information and research on the issues affecting women living with HIV; creating partnerships with organisations and individuals delivering services; and building relationships with policy makers. The Sophia Forum launched 'I was the one who walked myself home', an anthology of 30 poems by women living with HIV. A number of the women whose poems were published in the anthology will be performing their own work for you.

Bella Cox

Bella Cox is an international performance poet, vocalist, writer and workshop facilitator now based in London. She is consistently developing her craft as a member of five esteemed UK poetry collectives and continues to perform and feature at slams and open mic's nationwide.

Having performed in and around South Africa from early 2014, Bella won the title of Queen of the Mic 2016-17 for Word n Sound, Africa's largest spoken word platform, and her poems went on to be published in various anthologies and heard on S.A. national radio. In 2016, she gave her first TEDx talk and performance in Pretoria on the necessity of self-reflection through poetry before moving to London in 2017 where she now hosts and produces two monthly open mic nights, curates and comperes a poetry supper club and competes in various slams including Hammer & Tongue's National Slam at The Royal Albert Hall in January 2018.

Bella is best known for her passionate, quirky and descriptive layering style that she often uses to encourage socio-political change and motivate self-belief. Her work often touches on topics such as gender and sexual identity, relationships and their consequences and the notion of belonging. Having lived and performed in Kenya, South Africa, Spain and the UK, her work is a colourful fusion of art, politics and culture.

Katie Bonna

Katie is an actress and writer. Her one-woman show All The Things I Lied About premiered to critical acclaim at the Paines Plough Roundabout at Summerhall, Edinburgh in 2016, transferred to Soho Theatre and toured the UK in Autumn 2017. Dirty Great Love Story (co-written with Richard Marsh) transferred to The Arts Theatre in London’s West End in January 2017, following enormous success in Edinburgh (Fringe First Award winner, 2012), London and New York. Her new show, Paper. Scissors. Stone., won a Live Lab Bursary from Live Theatre Newcastle and is being developed for March 2018. Katie has just been announced as a finalist for the Off West End Awards 2018: Most Promising Playwright.

Katie's work has consistently Feminist themes, with a strong focus on gender conditioning, female sexuality, the confrontation of shame and domestic abuse issues.

Following the performances we welcome you to join us for a drinks reception and canapés. 

Bookings

Please fill out the booking form below to request a place. If you have any queries please contact us at seminars@gclaw.co.uk