A warm and cosy welcome back to the first Jawdance of 2025. We’re bringing you a special BIG LOVE themed night that will see two poetic teams go head to head to win your hearts. Co-hosts Yomi Sode and Kat Francois present their current poet crushes to woo and inspire you with some familiar faces and fresh talent from the spoken word scene.
Who will win on the night? Team Yomi or Team Kat? Only you can decide!
Our usual lucky dip will be available on the night for your chance to take the open mic. Jawdance is a supportive environment and we encourage a safe space to share your work.
Kat Francois – co-Host
Kat François is a Performance and Movement based Artist, Writer and Educator, Writing and Performance Coach and BBC TV and World Poetry Slam Champion.
Kat has appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row, Saturday Live and Woman’s Hour, as well as BBC TV & Sky, and featured on BBC television’s Paul Whitehouse: Our Troubled Rivers.
Kat François has written and performed two solo plays and three solo comedy shows. She recently won a short story competition, and her piece, INDIGO WATERS, is featured in HIDDEN REALMS, SHORT STORIES, published by Flame Tree Publishing.
RAISING LAZARUS, her play about Caribbean soldiers in the First World War, has also just been published (TSL Publications.)
Yomi SOde – co-Host
Yomi Ṣode is an award-winning Nigerian British writer. He is a recipient of the 2019 Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowship, shortlisted for The Brunel International African Poetry Prize 2021, and Arts Foundation Awards 2024.
His acclaimed one-man show COAT toured nationally to sold-out audiences, including at the Brighton Festival, Roundhouse Camden and the Battersea Arts Centre. In 2020 his libretto Remnants, written in collaboration with award-winning composer James B. Wilson and performed with Chineke! Orchestra premiered on BBC Radio 3.
In 2021, his play, and breathe… premiered at the Almeida Theatre to rave reviews. Yomi is a Complete Works alumnus and a member of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen. He is the founder of BoxedIn, First Five, The Daddy Diaries, and mentorship programme, 12 in 12. Yomi’s debut collection, Manorism was shortlisted for the T.S Eliot Prize 2022, The Rathbones Folio Prize 2023, and was adapted for stage at the Southbank Centre.