Amara van der Elst
(Netherlands, 2001) is a spoken word artist, lives in Rotterdam but her home is the stage. Amara heals, connects and broadens, through words, rhythm and movement. She brings fire to stages throughout the Netherlands and abroad. The Netherlands has already seen her shine twice on national TV where, among other things, she impressed with a performance on Remembrancy on Amsterdam's Dam Square. She runs her own spoken word writers' camp called Rhyme & Reason, holds the title of Education Innovation Talent of the Year and studies Creative writing at ArtEZ Hogeschool voor de Kunsten.
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Archive available for: Amara van der Elst
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Haagse literatuurprijzen: a festive programme celebrating The Hague's Literary Award winners
With: Aad Meinderts, Amara van der Elst, Chelsy Valentina, Dominique De Groen, Donald Niedekker, Farah Karimi, Hasan Gök, Hashem Kabreet, Hassnae Bouazza, Jeremy Jordan Rosa, Jina Sumedi, Kaja Wolffers, LUWTEN, Marion Bloem, Marjan Slob, Obe Alkema, Orchestre Partout, Saskia Bruines, Sinan Can
The Winternachten festival 2023 opened with prose, poetry, spoken word, music and the ceremony of the literary prizes of the City of the The Hague. The prize winners Marion Bloem, Donald Niedekker, Dominique De Groen and Marjan Slob (respectively) received the Constantijn Huygens-, F. Bordewijk-, Jan Campert-, and J. Greshoff- prizes from Saskia Bruines, alderman of Finance, Culture and Economy of The Hague.
The prize winners were each of them be honoured with performances by special guests, including research journalist and documentary filmmaker Sinan Can, poet Obe Alkema, The Hague student Jeremy Jordan Rosa and film and TV producer Kaja Wolffers (son of Marion Bloem).
The programme kicked off with the first official performance of Chelsy Valentina, the brand new and first Jonge Stadsdichter van Den Haag 2023 (Young City Poet of The Hague). Percussionist and handpan player Hashem Kabreet and Orchestre Partout gave music performances.
Farah Karimi, who chaired the Board of Writers Unlimited, and Aad Meinderts, director of the Literatuurmuseum spoke words of welcome. Additionally, the jubilee publication on the occasion of 75 years of The Hague literary prizes, was presented to the alderman.
Lobby programme with Amara van der Elst, Hasan Gök and the Jonge Stadsdichter
From 14:30 hours, preceding the award ceremony in Zaal 1, spoken word artist Hasan Gök presented from the lobby stage a short interview with Chelsey Valentina, the Jonge Stadsdichter (Young Civic Poet). Spoken word artist Amara van der Elst performed, and also Hasan Gök performed some of his poems, accompanied by Jina Sumedi on keyboard.Bookstore De Vries van Stockum was present in the lobby with a stand offering books by participating authors of this programme, among others including signing opportunties!
Haagse literatuurprijzen was curated by Jet Steinz for Literatuurmuseum/Writers Unlimited. Moderator was Hassnae Bouazza.
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WWZ x Winternachten Festival 2022
Yippee, WWZ was back at Winternachten! We ordered a drink and got carried away by today's top spoken-word artists and poets.
WWZ is a popular platform for authors, spoken-word artists and musicians that has, with energy and a deep love of language, staged the most beautiful performances and loveliest music for sold-out venues for many years. During Winternachten we joined forces with WWZ and PAARD. Besides Dutch poets and spoken-word artists, international festival authors let their voices be heard at WWZ x Winternachten Festival 2022 in an extra-long, high-profile program. Good vibes guaranteed!
Line-up
During this event you saw and heard performers such as: WWZ-founder and spoken-word artist Elten Kiene, writer and musician Aafke Romeijn, poet Derek Otte, spoken-word artists Kelvin Allison and Amara van der Elst, poet (and former Amsterdam poet laureate) Gershwin Bonevacia, poet Ellen Deckwitz, and Iranian-Swedish poet Athena Farrokhzad.