The Movement, an entertainment agency, will present the inaugural edition of Where We Gather, a poetry experience curated by multidisciplinary artist Kudakwashe Rice through Room Zero Creative Studio, at Alliance Française in Harare on Saturday, 7 November 2026. Under the theme Uprooted, the evening will bring together five Zimbabwean spoken word artists to explore separation, identity, belonging and the experiences that connect people even when their lives unfold in different circumstances. Featuring Saiiren, Hey Hey Preacher, Bhanshee, Tadana Nakai and TearsInTheSoil, the event is conceived as more than a conventional poetry showcase. Its central proposition is that storytelling can create a shared space in which individual experiences become a means of understanding others, allowing audiences to recognise aspects of their own lives in unfamiliar voices and narratives.
The concept draws on communal storytelling traditions across Africa, where people gathered around fires to share folktales, preserve memories, transmit knowledge and make sense of the world together. Where We Gather seeks to bring that spirit into a contemporary setting, using poetry as the meeting point between personal testimony and collective experience. Its premise is rooted in a familiar contradiction of modern life: people may experience similar joys, uncertainties, grief and personal upheavals, yet navigate them largely in isolation. The spaces in which such experiences might be shared are not always readily available, leaving individuals to make sense of circumstances that others may also have encountered but rarely discuss openly. Through spoken word, the gathering seeks to bridge some of that distance by creating an environment in which listening becomes as important as performance.
The inaugural theme, “Uprooted,” gives this idea a more specific emotional and philosophical direction. To be uprooted is to become separated from something that once provided grounding. That separation may involve leaving a physical place, but it can also emerge through a changing relationship with family, community, personal beliefs or one’s own sense of identity. Sometimes the break is sudden and unmistakable; at other times, it becomes apparent gradually, when a once familiar place, relationship or way of life begins to feel foreign.
The creative brief asks what happens when people lose touch with what grounds them, and what it might take to find connection again. It recognises that people come from different roots, while also acknowledging the ways those roots intertwine through family, culture, shared histories and common humanity. Life can weaken these connections, whether through physical distance, changing circumstances or the gradual realisation that the things once taken for granted no longer offer the same sense of belonging.
In this context, Uprooted is not simply a reflection on displacement. It also opens a conversation about the less visible forms of separation that shape personal experience, including estrangement from one’s community, uncertainty about identity and the search for a place to call home. By placing these experiences within a shared artistic setting, Where We Gather invites poets and audiences to consider both what has unsettled them and what continues to anchor them.
This is where the event’s broader purpose becomes apparent. If uprootedness describes the experience of separation, the act of gathering offers an opportunity to bring those experiences into relationship. Poetry becomes a way of listening across differences, recognising shared emotions and considering how connection might be restored without assuming that everyone’s circumstances are the same.
The evening’s curation is led by Rice through Room Zero, a multidisciplinary creative studio working across storytelling, design, culture and creative experiences. The collaboration with The Movement brings together artistic curation and event production, with the intention of presenting poetry not merely as a sequence of performances but as a collective encounter shaped by words, reflection and attentive listening.
That distinction matters to the event’s design. Rather than positioning the audience solely as spectators, Where We Gather invites people to consider their own experiences in relation to the stories being shared. The performers’ words become points of recognition, disagreement, empathy or reflection, creating the possibility of connection between people whose lives may otherwise intersect only briefly.
The five featured artists, will bring their individual voices to a programme united by the theme. Their performances will form part of a wider exploration of what it means to be separated from familiar foundations and how people negotiate the process of finding or redefining belonging. The organisers have not disclosed individual performance themes, leaving the evening’s particular interpretations to emerge through the artists’ work. For Zimbabwe’s creative community, the event also places spoken word within a broader conversation about the role of artistic spaces in public life. Poetry can give language to experiences that are difficult to articulate in ordinary conversation, while performance allows those words to be encountered collectively. When such work is presented around a common theme, it can provide an opening for conversations that extend beyond the venue and the duration of the event itself.
The significance of, “Where We Gather,” therefore lies not only in its celebration of spoken word, but also in the kind of encounter it seeks to facilitate. Its premise is that meaningful connection does not require identical experiences. It begins with the willingness to listen, to recognise the humanity in another person’s account and to consider how individual stories might illuminate shared questions. The inaugural edition will take place at Alliance Française, 328 Herbert Chitepo Avenue, Harare, from 6pm to 10pm on Saturday, 7 November 2026. Tickets are priced at US$10 for presale and US$15 at the gate. For an evening built around the idea of finding connection after separation, the invitation is straightforward: to pause, listen and consider what has unsettled us, what continues to ground us, and what we are learning to call home.
