MoeBotanical1Christine Hamel




Moe facilitates writing, spoken word performance, and looping pedal workshops in high schools, communities and with young Aboriginal peoples with a basis for de-habitualizing speech and deepening personal and collective awareness. In 2010 she was chosen as Leonard Cohen Poet in Residence (Westmount High School, 2010) and has since worked with the Quebec Writers’ Federation + The Centre for Literacy: Writers in the Community program to facilitate workshops in high schools and other facilities. Working with accessibility and inclusivity, Moe uses the microphone as a talking stick, to establish mutual respect and active listening with youth. Further to youth based workshops she facilitates professional-level workshops geared towards advancing spoken word performance, empowerment skills and vocal improvisation.

QUOTE: Training “teachers to be” in the McGill education department:

“Moe is able to inspire by her performance, helping students identify and develop the poet in them. She presents a piece, defines what makes it powerful, gives clear directions as to how the student can use a model to create their own poetry, and to share this gift with others. Her self-effacing manner engages everyone. By becoming our friend and sharing of herself, she encourages risk-taking in a supported setting. She helps young educators to understand the importance of giving voice to the actor within them. She is the living definition of a teacher and a poet.”
Lesley Pasquin, McGill Education Department

“Voicing the Earth Body”
narrative voice and sound creation workshop

– collaborative voice exploration
– looping pedal techniques
– personal and group visualization
– circle sharing
– deepening listening and embodiment experiences

How can singing, poetry and voice work bring us closer to our inner landscape and offer us a sense of belonging? This workshop will introduce participants to soundscape creation and the looping pedal. We explore our voices as tools for deepening our connection to the mother earth and to our own legacies through a variety of exercises designed to stimulate personal memory and lived-experience. Active participation through sound meditation, sound creation and dialogical reflection will be invited

“Looping Landscapes”
Spoken word performance and looping pedal workshop exploring body and voice as landscape.

Add new dimension to your spoken word poetry and written works roulette live. Combine your poetry with sounds, songs, and performance tools to create works that are stage-worthy and audience approved. Moe Clark will take you on a journey through her process of transforming a simple page poem into a full-spectrum spoken word performance poem with layers, loops, and creative vocal dimensions. Everyone is invited to bring a poem they would like to share (don’t worry, all levels are welcome) and we will explore in a small group with open minds and playful tactics.

“Speak!Up MTL Youth Spoken Word”
Youth-based spoken word poetry writing and performance workshop series
(Co-facilitated with other teaching spoken word artists)

– introducing youth to spoken word
– writing, sharing and exploring personal experiences
– discovering poetic prompts and literary devices
– self-empowerment
– interactive + performance activities
– using professional + youth poetry video examples

Teaching spoken word poetry is an effective way to empower youth while developing their language and self-expression skills. Partnerships between schools and teaching artists have proven to be highly effective areas for collaboration, giving youth access to professional poet mentors, as well as curriculum-focused classroom workshops. This 8-12 session workshop is designed to introduce youth ages 13-18 to writing their stories down and finding their voices through active dialogue, collaborative creation and performance.
SpeakUp! MTL empowers partner schools to hold a slam competition within the school to select representatives that will compete in a city-wide inter-school youth slam. The winners of this city-wide slam will work together with mentors from SpeakUp! and travel to Ottawa to compete at YouthCanSlam, an annual National youth poetry slam championship.

SpeakUp! MTL offers a series of in-class and/or extracurricular workshops in writing and performance to help students to refine their skills and prepare for these slams.

SpeakUp! MTL Spoken Word Curriculum Teacher Training
(Co-facilitated with other professional spoken word artists)

Goal: 
Introduce teachers to spoken word and give them the tools to get students responding to other work then writing and performing their own spoken word poetry.

Process: 
To expose teachers to examples of spoken word poetry through audio-visual materials and live performances. Offering them tools for critical dialogue about what, why, and how, to write and perform spoken word. As well, making connections to the larger picture; including festivals, community involvement, accessibility, etc.
Offering hands-on approach to teaching writing and performance so teachers can develop their toolkits and apply these techniques to their own teaching environments and student needs. What works with one class might not work with another, be ready to improvise on the spot.

Writing: from idea brainstorming, free-writes, different forms of poetry and poetic devices, to high-level writing exercise facilitation, all the way through to editing, amplifying and adding poetic devices through to Performing: watch, rehearse, score, perform, respond and engage.

“Finding Breath, Circle Singing: Vocal Intro”

– deepening listening skills
– group sound making
– freeing the body and breath
– vocal improvisation
– circle singing

Working with choirs, music classes and theatre students, this workshop is the perfect introduction to improvisational and alternative use of our voices with a heightened awareness of listening through the body. Working with techniques of vocal improvisation, Linklater technique and active listening, participants will be guided in a step-by-step exploration of their breath, body, internal and external voices, as well as group sound-creation.

Students will move breath and sounds of varying qualities through their body. Then, moving around the room, students will explore how sound and movement play together in space. One by one we go through this process of sound making to tap into authentic voice. Workshops advance as elements of circle singing and voice orchestras are explored.

“Voicing the unspoken”
Empowerment through writing from personal experience and poetic prompt.

– writing from personal experience
– spoken word
– visualization and poetic prompts
– self-empowerment
– intercultural audio-visual examples

This workshop will allow students to explore social, environmental, peer and parental pressures experienced in their lives through poetic prompts, video examples, writing and a talking circle.
Using video and audio samples we create dialogue around conflict and society. Guided by prompts, student are led through a short personal visualization, of a moment when they experienced pressure from an external source or “lost their talk”, after which they free-write. To conclude the texts, we discuss the editing process and share segments of the work in a full circle or small groups.

Addition to workshop: using looping pedal to add to performances with collaborative vocal
effects, as well as movement and performance dynamics.

‹‹Exprimer les non-dits››
Atelier des histories collectives et la pédale à répétition

Artiste Métis de spoken word, Moe Clark fusionne la technologie et l’expérimentation vocale pour susciter l’échange et guider les gens vers un environnement de création collective.
Dans cet atelier, les participants vont découvrir les possibilités qu’offre la pédale à répétition continue (looping pedal) dans la création. Cet atelier s’inpire des rituels autochtones tels que le “cercle de parole”, le partage collectif et les “chants circulaires”. Les participants seront invités à explorer l’unicité de leur voix à travers le spoken word, l’écriture et l’utilisation poétique des sons en puisant dans les thèmes liés à la justice sociale, à l’environnement et à l’héritage personnel et collectif.