TJ Dema
Tjawangwa Dema aka TJ Dema is a Botswana based performance poet, award winning writer, columnist and voice over artist. Her talents extend to radio presenting, independent event emceeing, modeling and runway choreography; skills she says appear unrelated but are amazingly useful for a performer. She is on the executive committee of the national arts bodies Lentswe La Basadi ba Botswana (LLBB). She is also a longstanding member of The Livepoets, The Writers Association of Botswana (WABO) for which she was Publicity Secretary (2005/07), as well as being a founding member (alumni) of the acclaimed Exoduslivepoetry! collective (ELP), who have coordinated Botswana's sole annual poetry festival for five consecutive years.
TJ has been actively involved in the field of Live Literature, nurturing and promoting the spoken word movement in Botswana since 2001 actively seeking out opportunities for regional cross pollination of poetry by hosting artists from the region and beyond. She was part of a collaborative effort with a Yarona Fm in hosting a weekly poetry platform on radio; a first initiative of its kind in Botswana. She is considered one of Botswana's leading voices in poetry.
TJ is a 2005/06 participant in the British Council's Crossing Borders project with whom she has partnered on a number of initiatives including the 2008/09 Power in the Voice(PIV) competition as mentor to the PIV national champions. She has participated in, facilitated and performed at workshops, festivals, art exhibitions and corporate events. She has been commissioned to perform during the 2005 SADC Gender conference, Bua! on South Africa's Constitution Hill, the Oprah Magazine Tea Party, Miss Botswana 2005 and 2007, Delhi International Arts Festival 2008, the President's Annual Concert 2008, the United Nations Development Program IDEP 2007 and 2008, Make Some Noise (SA) 2009, the 31st Cambridge Seminar on Contemporary Literature as well as the Live Poets open mic sessions.
TJ has carved her own niche by often articulating on women and children's issues within her work and mentoring high school students on creative writing. She is a 2002 International Poet of Merit award holder, 2007 International Society of Poets Poetry Ambassador and 2007 Bessie Head Literature award first runner up who has shared the stage with leading international artists including but in no way limited to Adisa, Chirikure Chirikure, Comrade Fatso, Imtiaz Dharker, Gulzar, Lebo Mashile, Lemn Sissay, OutSpoken and the Essence, Tumi and the Volume, Roger Robinson, Sudeep Sen, Toni Blackman, Upmost and Stan and Zena Edwards.
TJ has been published in a number of anthologies both at home and internationally. She makes use of the world wide web through facebook, myspace and poetry.com to share her work as well by collaborating with producers, lending her voice on musical projects. For bookings, workshop facilitation and/or media inquiries kindly contact The Administrator at sautiartsadmin@gmail.com
In her own words
"I am a Botswana based performance poet, freelance writer, columnist and voice over artist. My love affair with words began at an early age and I would just as soon read them, hear them, feel them as speak them.
To feed my hunger for sharing stories whether through poetry, hip hop or storytelling I, for that very selfish reason, have been actively involved in nurturing and promoting the spoken word/performance poetry movement in Botswana since 2001 co-founding a poetry collective as its sole female member for its first two years. The collective remains the host of Botswana's sole poetry festival to this day actively seeking out opportunities for regional cross pollination of poetry by hosting renowned artists from the region and where possible internationally.
Although I work 'organically', feeding as much of my day to day environment as any technical understanding of my craft, I enjoy the magic that young minds can stir up so I consciously work with high school age youth when opportunity allows through benefactors such as the British Council and the Botswana Government. Women, children, love; lost, (being) found are recurring themes within my poems. My words are written to a beat, a private rhythm of sorts with an unconscious emphasis on acoustics than poetic technique, which more often than not takes a backseat to the story being told and how it's being told.
Recently I found an old retelling of Beauty and the Beast, well thumbed words intact despite the pre-school fingers that must have repeatedly paged through in an attempt to keep up with the voice reading on the tape. A fitting beginning methinks, for a writer who despite being repeatedly told she would outgrow this 'habit' still prefers to speak her stories rather than/before sharing them on the page."
