Some say the blues is a fat black woman
sometimes it’s just the wrong pair of shoes …
It’s not knowing who to put on speed dial,
It’s a song called loneliness,
a drink called the long cab ride home alone,
The blues is all about all about longing cutting sharp into your bones.

– From ‘Blues Poem’

On Thursday, 14 January 2010, visitors at the Esplanade’s Concourse were treated to lines such as the ones above by poet and spoken word artist, Pooja Nansi, woven in with the blues and folk styling of singer, Anjana Srinivasan. Together, the duo who calls themselves the Mango Dollies, seeks to explore the relationship between poetry and song through their work. Clearly, the association between music and poetry is not new – they wouldn’t be the first to set poems to music – but having the Mango Dollies featured as part of the Esplanade Presents programme at the Concourse might be just what the local spoken word scene – which, honestly, has been fairly quiet this past year, even as young, local poets continue to trudge on and produce exciting new work – needs to give it a boost, while raising spoken word and performance poetry as a rich genre in itself. The Mango Dollies perform original pieces – poems written by Nansi alongside songs written by Srinivasan – as well as combining the work of writers and songwriters such as Charles Bukowski with Townes Van Zandt, or Carol Anne Duffy and Kim Addonizio with Gillian Welch, in what can be described as a literary, lyrical mash-up. It is a winning combination that we are certain will be appreciated by music and poetry aficionados alike. More importantly, it is a mode of presentation that is sure to please casual audience members who might otherwise find poetry too daunting to engage with.

Individually, the Mango Dollies are no strangers to performing. Pooja Nansi has been a regular participant in the Singapore Poetry Slam scene, performing her work at various literary events locally, and across the Causeway when local Slam organisers decided to take the form to Kuala Lumpur, as well as at the 2007 KL Literature Festival. She also took part in poetry projects such as ‘Speechless’ with the British Council in 2008, which gave her the opportunity to work with poets from London, Ireland, Taiwan, the Phillipines, Malaysia, and Vietnam on a month-long tour of the United Kingdom. Nansi has a published collection of poetry to her name, Stiletto Scars, which was launched at the Singapore Writers Festival (2007). Educator by day, Mango Dolly by night, Nansi’s passion for poetry and her belief in the power of performance and the spoken word as a medium for transmitting and encouraging the appreciation of poetry carries through in her other calling.

Pooja Nansi’s acoustic accomplice, Anjana Srinivasan, is a recent graduate of the National University of Singapore’s Theatre Studies Programme and has taken to the stage in a number of theatrical productions, including at last year’s Singapore Arts Festival. However, she credits her love for the music of artistes such as B.B King, Bessie Smith and Muddy Waters for inspiring her to sing. Srinivasan has performed traditional blues and folk music in other acoustic pairings at various venues in Singapore since 2007 – in fact, this Mango Dollies gig would not be Srinivasan’s first time performing at the Concourse at the Esplanade, since she performed there in December 2007 as half of just one such duo. She describes herself as having recently ‘gone electric’, joining the Live!@Bojangles house band and expanding her musical repertoire to include electric blues, soul, Motown and funk. 8flo caught up with this tropical twosome to get to the “seed” of the Mango Dollies and find out more about their influences and also how close these women are to the lines they speak and sing.

Recently, the Mango Dollies performed for a good cause at the Prince of Wales as part of the pub’s move to raise funds for the relief efforts to help victims of the earthquake in Haiti. You, too,

can be a fan of the Mango Dollies, and be updated on what’s going on with the duo, on Facebook.

* The Mango Dollies are performing again on 17 MAY 2010, MON -
18 MAY 2010, TUE at the Esplanade concourse at 7.15pm and 8.15pm. Do check them out!

Tags: country, esplanade, mango dollies, poetry, singapore

« Older Article

Newer Article »

---