Episode 2. Masego Lynia, spoken word artist: poetry and conversation with artist and writer Una – Dedicated to All the Others: Conversations about creative process
Masego is a dynamic artist who has taken several creative roles with: Mafwa Theatre as an Associate Artist, Leeds Playhouse as an Assistant Director on ‘Freedom Project’ which she’s been a part of since the early stages in partnership with the Young Vic, with Freedom Studios as Associate Director on ‘Aaliyah (after Antigone)’ and Cosmo Square Films as Associate director of WARM, a short film. She’s also an Arts and Well-being facilitator trained by Displace Yourself Theatre. Masego participated in Una’s Dedicated to All the Others: Leeds in 2021.
Podcast episode 2.
This episode begins with Masego Lynia’s powerful spoken word work “Be Still” and is followed by a conversation between Masego and Una about the writing process, a love of words, difficulty speaking, reputation, and Una’s images that were used during the Dedicated to All the Others creative writing project in Leeds. The podcast ends with a short poem:
I don’t write about flowers Or how much I’d like for them to die, for me to feel I don’t coat war with rose petals so it’s palatable I don’t dress truth And I’ve never known poetry to be shy.
The content of this podcast refers to gendered violence. Follow Masego on Instagram.
“Be Still” was first developed as a performance work for the digital arts project Flock: Short stories from women on the move, supported by Counterpoint Arts, Arts Council England, The National Lottery Reaching Communities Fund, East Street Arts and Leeds Inspired. You can watch the film made for Flock here. The spoken word performances on this podcast were recorded specially for Dedicated to All the Others.
Una is the Leeds based author of Becoming Unbecoming and creative director of Red Dress Collective. Una developed this project with support from Leeds Inspired and Arts Council England. Masego is also based in Leeds. The two artists met during Una’s creative writing project, Dedicated to All the Others: Leeds, funded by Leeds Inspired.
Masego Lynia is a dynamic artist who has taken several creative roles with: Mafwa Theatre as an Associate Artist, Leeds Playhouse as an Assistant Director on ‘Freedom Project’, as Associate Director on ‘Aaliyah (after Antigone)’ and Cosmo Square Films as Associate director of WARM, a short film. She’s also an Arts and Well-being facilitator trained by Displace Yourself Theatre. She participated in content creation for Leeds Playhouse digital film ‘This was a lockdown’. Masego is a versatile actor who has done film and theatre work.
Links to things Masego mentions:
Images from Becoming Unbecoming: Reputation, and Una carrying her speech burden.
Una’s partners in Brazil, Coletivo Rubra, will perform a short play adapted from Becoming Unbecoming and created using Boal’s theatre methods. Coletivo Rubra can be found on Instagram and Facebook.
Transcript of Be Still, by Masego Lynia
Thanks to Jon Sayles for playing Bach so beautifully on the guitar and for providing this service free under CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSE: Gavottes 1 and 2 From Cello Suite, Exzel Music Publishing (freemusicpublicdomain.com), Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/