Event Review: Sister Spit

Last week, I attended the Sister Spit Traveling Road Show and prior to arriving, I had no idea what to expect. I had never heard of this show and when the emcee, Beth Lisick, explained the mission of the show and how the artists came together, I was pleasantly surprised by what came next.  I think the first artist, Dia Felix, a poetry reader, set the scene for the rest of the show by making a joke about attending poetry readings. She addressed how even as a poet, she finds most poetry readings very boring and promised that she would keep her readings short and fun. I thought this was a great tactic to begin the show because it made it possible for the audience to feel more involved, instead of just a passive participant. It made the audience more excited. While poetry readings do not have to be boring, they can be hard to follow and somewhat tedious, but I did not feel this way throughout the show. I loved each and every performance. They were different, engaging, interesting and extremely passionate.  Each artist’s passion made the performances so much fun to watch. Although it is hard to pick the “best” performance, I think my personal favorite was Virgie Tovar, a fat activist and writer. I had never heard of fat activism and found it fascinating. Fat activism is a fight against fat discrimination and works towards a positive perception of body image. It is meant to show people that physical image is not as important as people think. I loved her readings because they were funny, realistic, entertaining, and clearly something she was passionate about. She got up there and rocked her creative and self-expressing style, while telling tales of “fat girls” from the book, Hot and Heavy: Fierce Fat Girls on Life, Love & Fashion. I think I liked this presentation the most because it was the most inspiring to me. I even wrote down the name of the book so I could continue reading it and learn more about fat activism. It is such an interesting topic that is not very well known, especially on the east coast. I think it would be a great thing to discuss in our class because it seems very controversial and thought provoking.