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Saturday, February 22, 2025
Climbing PoeTree

Climbing PoeTree combines spoken word, hip hop, visual arts and theater to craft a unique take on social injustice and societal critiques.

Climbing PoeTree brings unique performance model to Union South

On Saturday, spoken word duo Climbing PoeTree will be performing at Union South in the Northwoods Room at 7pm. The group consists of Alixa Garcia and Naima Penniman, whose performances interweave spoken word, hip-hop, and multimedia theater. Climbing PoeTree focuses on shedding light on injustice and oppression and using our hopes to create a vision of a better future.

The performance is sponsored by the Campus Women’s Center (CWC) and the Multicultural Student Center. I had the opportunity to sit down with the Campus Women’s Center’s outreach coordinator Alice Bradley, who organized the event. She described how Climbing PoeTree’s performance would relate to the CWC’s mission.

“A really big part of our mission is to seek to eradicate ideologies of domination, such as sexism, racism, classism, etc.,” said Bradley. “We work towards this goal by providing a variety of support services, educating the campus community and serving as a resource referral center, and so Climbing PoeTree’s work to fight against structural oppression goes really well with our mission statement and values.”

Alice also told me that one of the CWC’s focuses this semester has been how art can be a form of activism. March 30th the CWC sponsored a performance by poet and singer Jamila Woods to go along with their “Gender and the Body” themed art show at the Electric Earth Cafe.

“We think that art is a really good way to connect across boundaries and borders,” Bradley said.

“[Climbing PoeTree] are a really unique group in that they talk about so many forms of oppression and how they’re all related. It’s a good example of the power of art to draw attention to those things but also create something new. It will definitely be an uplifting and inspiring performance.”

Based on what I have seen of their performances on the Internet, I think that will be the case. People who are sometimes turned off by the negativity related to social critiques should find their energetic and hopeful pieces refreshing. I would also recommend Climbing PoeTree to people who do not usually go to spoken word performances, because their performance’s incorporation of various media is so unique.

The event is free and open to the public.

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