Culture Briefs: Speaking out against HIV/AIDS

Spoken-word fans and charitable souls should make a beeline for Casa del Popolo this Sunday for an evening that’s two parts spoken-word smorgasborg and one part good karma.

Sunday’s incarnation of “Words and Music at the Casa,” Casa del Popolo’s monthly spoken-word event, will feature The Excelano Project, a spoken-word trio that has raised over $20,000 in the past two years to combat HIV/AIDS.

Founding member Carlos Gómez says The Excelano Project tries to continually challenge audiences and conventions.

“Everything we do is very provocative – in terms of content, conceptually, and in terms of style,” he says. “You won’t be able to sit passively in your seat. You’ll be actively engaged.”

Hailing from the American northeast, The Excelano Project was conceived two years ago in a Rhode Island café by Gómez and Brent Shuttleworth. Eli Akerstein later rounded out the trio.

“The word ‘excelano’ came from a class,” Gómez says. “None of us remember what language it’s in, but the word means ‘march forth,’ and Brent’s birthday is March 4. Symbolically, that day is a day we should challenge ourselves.”

Gómez says all three members are involved in other activist pursuits, ranging from poverty and homelessness to the anti-war movement and the expansion of US prisons.

“Our group does music and poetry, and we want to fuse our art and activism,” Gómez says.

Sometimes performing a cappella, and sometimes fusing their poetry with elements of jazz, blues, hip hop, and folk, The Excelano Project strives to inject an activist message into every performance.

“Every project we do we feel is a challenge to the standards of what poetry is, and what art is,” Gómez says. “But it’s also about changing activism and the status quo, and the way things are in the world.”

The Excelano Project’s Sunday performance is part of a nine-stop tour that has touched down in Zambia, South Africa, the US, and Canada. Sponsoring the tour is the NYC Student Initiative for AIDS (SIA), a student-run, non-profit advocacy group. One hundred per cent of the money raised on the tour will be donated to Africa Directions, an advocacy group based in a region of Zambia with a 90 per cent HIV infection rate among its adult population.

“What this program does is run a youth centre and provide peer education programs, voluntary counseling and testing, and a lot of youth-related activities,” says SIA’s Eric Cioe. Cioe says that all venues on the tour are supplying their space free of charge, and that the artists and personnel are all paying their own way to Montreal.

Gómez says The Excelano Project has been dedicated to raising awareness of the global HIV/AIDS crisis from day one.

“Since we first founded The Excelano Project, this has ben the sole cause we’ve fundraised for,” he says. “We’ll continue until there’s no more HIV/AIDS in the world, or until we just can’t go anymore.... We want people to go home from the show and say ‘I can do something.’”

Casa del Popolo is located at 4873 St. Laurent. Check out The Excelano Project there the evening of Sunday, September 21, and throw down what you can for Africa Directions.

–Holly Beck