UK Finals Results

The triumphant winners of the UK Power in the Voice competition are Saint Aloysius Roman Catholic College in North London.

Triumphant winners of the UK Power in the Voice competition: Saint Aloysius Roman Catholic College in North London

Artists from Botswana (Abro), South Africa (Zubz), Mauritius (Yonny), Mozambique (Lidia), Zimbabwe (Sithandazile Dube) and Zambia (Benne Banda) came to London to share their own experience of oral and performance traditions with local schoolchildren and fellow practitioners. They also took part in workshops with the finalists and entertained the audience with their own material on the day of the final.

At the workshops, which began last November, the children learned how to craft and perform poetry, mentored by renowned spoken word-artists who have been working with the Power in the Voice artists including Roger Robinson and Zena Edwards.

Eight schools competed in the grand final at London's Criterion Theatre on Thursday 28 February - the spoken-word competition, judged by a panel of experts and critics including our own Advisory Board member and Radio 1 DJ, Nihal Arthanayake.

African artists joined London school children on stage at the Criterion Theatre for the final

The prize, an opportunity for the winners to attend the Power in the Voice regional festival in Botswana alongside their mentors in August 2008, was won by Saint Aloysius Roman Catholic College in North London. Nihal said it was the performance by 'Saints' about living without, and not knowing their own fathers, that made the biggest impact with the judges. 'The way that they used the Lord's Prayer as a way to ask for their own fathers, and the fact that their loss of faith has come about through that loss, I thought that was an incredibly sophisticated and complex way of putting across something that's very common and very much debated in their communities. The way they attached something so powerful to get that across was absolute genius. '

David John, one of the pupils involved in the performance said, 'We talked about different topics and we came up with

UK Power in the Voice final.

this, and co-incidentally everybody had lost their fathers, and we thought, yeah, it's difficult, we've done a lot of work to come through this but eventually we got there, and you can see from the emotion of the crowd that our perseverance was good for us.'

Power in the Voice UK final.

One of the performers, Olasemo Abiola, said, 'I took this as an opportunity to express the feelings that I've been holding in, because it really did hurt me with not having my dad around, and I never really had a chance to speak to my mum about it, or anyone about it. When I heard [about] Power in the Voice I thought this was a chance for all of us to express deep thoughts.'

UK Power in the Voice final.

Power in the Voice in the UK.

Helping students develop their self-expression is one of the main aims of the project. Susan Nielson, a teacher at another participating school, said, 'It's great to be involved in a project which capitalises on and hones skills and interests that our pupils already have. Using the British Council resources has also been a nice route into discussions about the global community, which I often feel our pupils don't see themselves a part of'.

Watch some of the performances on video.

Neil Kinnock at the Power in the Voice UK final.

 

 

Power in the Voice UK final.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the Power in the Voice UK final Neil Kinnock and DJ Nihal were on hand to congratulate the winners.

Power in the Voice UK final.