The Chewstick Foundation was at it again on Saturday night. This time their eclectic mix of street poetry and grassroots artistry was in full bloom at the legendary Ruth Seaton James auditorium for a fundraiser to support their upcoming tour of Toronto (or CHEWronto, depending on who you ask!).The show was pretty much the same as you’d expect to catch at a regular Chewstick session, with sprinkles of Bermuda’s best artists adding a heaping helping of gravitas to the generally entertaining proceedings.The only overriding problem was the group’s relatively limited understanding of theatre production. The sound was quite off for the first half of the show, the light was used badly throughout the evening, and there was a certain migraine-inducing flash emanating from the stage all through the showcase.Technical difficulties aside, the talent onstage ranged from adequate at worst, to spectacular. The format of the show involved a reading of the four pillars of the Chewstick Foundation: respect, freedom, love and truth. Each pillar was introduced by a member of the foundation at intervals throughout the show. Foundation stalwart Gavin “Sundjata” Smith opened the show by introducing ‘respect’ with a song about perseverance, and then came the first block of performances.Stephan Johnstone was the first of the featured artists. He delivered five original poems without musical accompaniment (something a purist like myself certainly appreciated), and effortlessly extracted oohs and aahs from the 300 or so patrons who attended. This was the beginning of quite a revelation, and the first exhibit in the case for spoken word being stronger than ever at Chewstick.The spoken word, in fact, was strong throughout the evening, with Sharla Bean also delivering a decidedly powerful “one voice” set (meaning that she did not have musical backing either why folks believe that poetry is better with random musical backing, I’ll never know!). When it comes to spoken word art, Nas said it best: “All I need is one mic…” Ya heard?! Good job Bermudian Poets!If spoken word has finally become a viable artistic pillar of what it is that Chewstick does, the other three artistic pillars have always been: rapping, singing, and playing instruments. The first appearance of the always satisfying Chewstick band (now dubbed the DIA Band) came with Joy T Barnum’s set during the opening ‘respect’ bloc.So the next two artistic pillars got some strong representation pretty early, although the sound mixing made it difficult to hear Joy’s ethereal voice. Her production values, however, were quite apparent, as she opened her set with a silhouette fade in that was nothing short of fabulous.Joy was the consummate professional throughout her set, delivering three beautiful pieces, working the stage like a veteran (which she has indeed become), and even incorporating a dream-catching wardrobe change (you had to be there to get that one Bill).Freedom was introduced by TanZ, and was fortified by nice performances by the aforementioned Sharla, and Chewstick’s champion of the rapping art form, Roddy “R?ddla” Nesbitt. The DIA Band was very strong each time they were used to back performers, and held down the playing of instruments artistic pillar with considerable panache.Promising newcomer Kiandra introduced ‘love’ after the intermission. This bloc offered really strong performances by local crooners Ramon Clarke (who got massive support for his delivery of his local hit “That Thing You Have”), and the smooth voiced neophyte JIV, who delivered stunningly suave vocals, and was a shoo-in for surprise of the night!The last pillar, ‘truth’, was introduced by Carly, who left another pearl of proof that Chewstick has grown poetically in the crowd’s collective mind with a spoken word gem that implored our mother tongue to “eat your words”! Nice.The last bloc of performances featured a heavy dose of KASE, Chewstick’s resident hip-hop icon, and a sublime performance by the always magnificent Mitchel “Live Wires” Trott. Local radio hits ‘Melanin Man’ and ‘More and More’ made Wires’ set a treat, while KASE accompanied Imari to deliver the popular “Ok, Good, Very Good, Excellent”. Suffice it to say that this bloc was certainly a strong one to end with!Couple the strong ending with the fact that the sound problems appeared to have been sorted out during intermission, and the second half of this showcase more than made up for the technical-difficulty-plagued first half.So to recap: Respect, Freedom, Love, Truth + spoken word, rapping, singing, playing instruments = quite a showcase. Well done Chewstick, and break a leg in CHEWronto!