Poet Laureate and Wife to Perform at the Dancing Poetry Festival

By Natica Angilly Part 6 September 27 at the San Francisco Palace of the Legion of Honor marks the annual convergence of  international, national and local poets, dancers, musicians and arts enthusiasts who share the love of language that moves in the grace of dance.  Establishing  an annual festival environment to expand the challenge of dance motivated by poetry, and to open the doors to inter-cultural poetry and dance in order to gain a greater understanding of the world’s poetic thoughts, the “poet and the dancer” Richard and Natica Angilly, Artists Embassy International, and the first poet Laureate of Alameda, Mary Rudge, created the annual Dancing Poetry Festival.   Author, co-founder and poet Richard Angilly has won many  poetry awards and has been featured at many poetry events.  He serves as facilitator, visual artist, performer, and poetry  ambassador.  He is president of the Ina Coolbrith Circle, the poetry organization founded by California’s first Poet Laureate, and hailed as the oldest poetry society in the United States.  Along with his dedication to poetry events, Richard is the guiding energy that propels and co-directs the Dancing Poetry Festival, lending his voice in performance. The festival was founded fifteen years ago in the spirit of expanding participation and collaboration of arts.   Since then Natica Angilly’s Poetic Dance Theater Company with poet Richard Angilly and poetic dancers has been invited to perform at world events on five continents by invitation of  kings, ministers of culture, and international dignitaries.  They have created a “poetic dance language”.  This new and old art form is said to be “the mother tongue of the world”, and “this company will give an exemplary performance of the art of poetry together with the art of dance”.  These quotes about the company are entered into the Congressional Record of the United States and in a letter to the King of Spain when the company was invited to perform at a World Congress of Poets held in Madrid.  More recently the company performed at the First World Congress of Poetry and Cultures to be held in China, where Natica was honored with the title of “World Muse”. Artists Embassy International and the Dancing Poetry Festival committee celebrate the vital works of today’s role models, cultural heros, and excellence in many fields of art and literature. The Festival will also host the  president of the United Poets Laureate International, Benjamin Yuzon.  This organization is remembered for crowning the first poet laureate, John Masefield, and thereby creating this continuing honor for poets.  Mr. Yuzon will announce the next World Congress of Poets. Eighteen diverse poetic dance performances of less than ten minutes each will also highlight the program with a variety of poetry and dance forms.  Three grand prize poems are  choreographed and performed for the occasion by the Natica Angilly’s Poetic Dance Theater Company with poet Richard Angilly. Selected professional and community dance companies, poetic dancers and poets included in the festival are The  Dancers of the Pharaohs with Shukriya DeVine, Fatima’s Cultural Arts Studio, Poet Laureate Mary Rudge with Aneena -“Queen of the Veils”,  Ma Shuka Mira Mujan, Tuju Taksu, Gypsy Krackers, Poet Maria Rosales with the Moving Arts Dance Company, Poet Noni Howard with the dance: “Poem From an Older Poet To A Younger Poet”, and  Paradise, with hip hop dancer and saxophonist. With the marriage of poetry together with dance, the case is made that by this joining the two arts together, an entirely new art form emerges. Discovering avenues for poetic expression and developing new relationships is the challenge for dancing poetry. The performances begin at Noon and continue until 4 p.m. at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco.  For information and reasonable advance tickets please call 510-235-0361 and check our website at www.dancingpoetry.com.