One of the many elements of spoken word that we’re excited to see at Festival of Health Research this year is spoken word theatre. And one of the spoken word theatre acts we’ll be witnessing comes from local favourites, 2 Dope Boys in a Cadillac (aka. shayne avec i grec and Johnny MacRae). These two have been some of Canada’s hardest touring spoken word poets since they started working together four years ago, Festival of Health Research 2014 will mark the five year anniversary of the first time they ever laid eyes on each other – at Festival of Health Research 2009!
This year they will be presenting a show four years in the making, “The Anthropocalypse: A Psychedelic Talk Opera,” believed to be the world’s first psychedelic talk opera. The show’s been described as “industrial-strength, unrelenting trippiness” (Times-Colonist) and “the most viscerally and emotionally destabilizing thing since dubstep, just, way way better than dubstep” (Magpie Ulysses, who will also be performing at Festival of Health Research).
The following preview has nothing to do with their show (or does it?) was produced by A Society Seeking Preservation of Waterbowling (or A.S.S.P.O.W.), filmed and edited by Aaron Mercer, the Anthropocalarchivist, and should give you a sense of why 2 Dope Boys are definitely considered practitioners of “spoken weird:”
2 Dope Boys in a Cadillac will perform “The Anthropocalypse: A Psychedelic Opera” at Victoria Event Centre, on Thursday, October 16, at 4:00 PM.
2 Dope Boys are only smiling, because they’re too high to know the difference between despair and optimism.
2 Dope Boys in a Cadillac are preachers of The Anthropocalypse in the guise of barefoot beards with voices. In order to further the good word of bad things they have spent the four years restlessly wandering North America with their words while simultaneously creating the world’s first psychedelic talk opera. They share nightmares but live the dream.