Comedy

Slam 2018: Queen Hazel offers whiskey for words

26/10/2018 written by Monika Linder
Kilian Ziegler, the reigning Swiss individual and team champion, sums up the solidarity of the slam scene. "First and foremost, we look forward to seeing each other, and the competition comes second," says the man from Olten, "it's not for nothing that we call ourselves the 'Slamily', a play on the words slam and family." Everyone who wins is happy, even more so when their name ends up on the winner's podium and they receive a bottle of whiskey from Hazel Brugger.

In the meantime, the German-speaking scene has stepped out of the shadow of big brother USA and even outgrown it. There were 5,000 visitors in Hamburg recently. The venue changes every year. Switzerland has had to wait a whole ten years since 2008 to welcome back the best word acrobats, language artists, rhyme jugglers and poets.

Poetry slam is a modern poetry competition in which poets compete against each other alone or in teams with texts they have written themselves. Whether stories, rap, poetry or comedy - the slammers use all means of art to fight for the audience's favor. The structure of the traditional slam was established in 1986 by Marc Smith, a construction worker and poet, at a reading series in a jazz club in Chicago. The competition quickly spread across the country and found a permanent, already legendary home in New York City at the Nuyorican Poets Café.

A veteran of the Zurich slam poetry scene: Phibi Reichling
200 word acrobats are coming to Zurich for the slam - from Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, South Tyrol and other places in Switzerland. After the opening gala at the Schauspielhaus, the competition continues in Circles 4 and 5 - at the Amboss Rampe, Kasheme, Kosmos, Plaza, X-TRA and Volkshaus. The climax after four days of competition will take place on November 10 in the Hallenstadion Zurich. The twelve preliminary rounds, four semi-finals and the team competition, which is regarded as the supreme discipline of the community, demand every skill from the participants.

It's not just the competition that increases the pressure on the participants, but also the clock: the text has to be convincing in just six minutes. The presenters are judged on the manner of their performance as well as on style and content. The art of arousing enthusiasm and captivating the audience is crucial. The listener is also the observer - and ultimately also the Caesar's thumb, which points either up or down at the end.

Swiss German is considered to be particularly dynamic and expressive

"Many texts cannot be translated one-to-one into High German, as they then lose their dynamism and expressiveness. As Swiss, we therefore have a home advantage."

Kilian Ziegler

The figurehead of the German-speaking scene, Hazel Brugger, will host the final together with the veteran of the Zurich scene, Phibi Reichling. "The advantage of a championship in Switzerland is that we don't have to rewrite our dialect texts," says Laurin Buser, who is competing individually and in the team "Zum goldenen Schmied" together with Fatima Moumouni. "Many texts cannot be translated one-to-one into standard German, as they then lose their dynamism and expressiveness. As Swiss, we therefore have a home advantage."

But this is also the only advantage, says Kilian Ziegler: "The audience is not blinded by origin and judges the performance of the presenters impartially. The best wins." For both slammers, however, anticipation prevails. There is no sign of nervousness among the men.

Slam 2018 - German-language poetry slam championships
6-10.11.2018, various locations, Zurich
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Translated with DeepL