Poetry-Beatbox

Chirikuré Chirikuré combines poetry, music and theater, reworking oral narrative traditions from Zimbabwe. His cadence and facial and physical gestures allow each of his poems to be reborn in every new performance – in a kind of chanted song. The German beatbox champion Mando “accompanies” and translates Chirikuré’s poetry in his own inimitable way.

Participants:

Chirikuré Chirikuré is perhaps best known as one of Zimbabwe’s most talented performance poets and storytellers. He performs his poetry in Shona and English and usually together with musicians and their traditional African instruments.

Mando’s real name is Daniel Mandolini and he is the German Beatbox champion. He inherited his love of music from his Argentinian parents; his father is a conductor and his mother a music therapist. Mando studied guitar at Musikhochschule Hanns Eisler. Howver, in recent years, he has spent more time beatboxing.

Florian Werner works as a radio writer and translator in Berlin. He has also published several non-fiction books and prose pieces.