Family: Back on a Live Stage
On October 21, 2020, Speaker Slam® returned to a live stage. After a spring and summer of online competitions, ten speakers, four judges and a small audience gathered at the Lincoln Alexander Theatre in Hamilton, while viewers at home watched the livestream. It was Speaker Slam®'s first hybrid event, and one of the only in-person events of the pandemic year.
The night had been in the making since February. "We were going to make this happen no matter what," Rina told the room. She also explained what the theme had come to mean to her and Dan: the speakers who changed flights and travel plans to be there, the judges who had all stood on the Speaker Slam® stage or judged before, and the audience who made the drive to Hamilton. "This is our family. This is why we do this."
Then Dan led the first "Speaker! Slam!" chant in a long time, and the competition began.
1st Place: Jonathan Andrews
Jonathan told the story of his high school years, when he lost a close family friend to suicide and fell into clinical depression. He described the morning his dad came into his room, as he had every day for months, and refused to let him face it alone.
He ended by speaking directly to his father, who was in the audience. "Dad, stand up," he said, and the room applauded. "All I want is to be the man you've been for me, for the men in my life. It's because of you that we all know it only takes one person who cares enough to change the world."
Accepting first place, Jonathan thanked the other speakers, the three people who worked through the speech with him line by line so that it honoured his dad, and his mom, who could not be there. Jonathan had placed 2nd at Personal Transformation and at the Grand Slam in 2017, and has volunteered at Speaker Slam® events many times over the years.
2nd Place: Merav Richter
Merav asked the audience a question: where does consciousness live? When she was 23, her mother went into the hospital to have a brain tumour removed, suffered a stroke overnight and fell into a coma. One day, out of frustration, Merav picked up the book of psalms her mother read every day and started reading aloud. Her mother finished the psalm.
"Funny," she said, "it took nine months for my mom to give me life, and nine more months for my mom to give me the meaning of life."
Merav won Power of Community in 2018, and this result sent her to the Grand Slam for the second time.
3rd Place: Adonis Rosalle
Adonis was 14 when his grandmother Geraldine died. She had wanted her house and her share of the family business to go to Adonis, his mother and his brothers. Instead, an uncle took the house and changed the locks on the business, and the family spent years moving from place to place and sitting in courtrooms.
What he took from it was a wider idea of who counts as family. "The heart is a fantastic thing. It doesn't care about the past. It only desires to love and be loved. Trust it. Family is what you make it."
Adonis went on to compete at the 2020 Grand Slam.
Every Speaker, Every Story
All ten speakers took the theme somewhere different.
- Peter Hernandez told the story of being kidnapped with his sister in Mexico City, and how the love between them changed the way their kidnappers treated them. "Next time you tell someone you love them, don't just say it. Feel it, and send it from heart to heart." Peter went on to place 3rd at the 2020 Grand Slam.
- Keka DasGupta spoke about growing up criticized for how she looked, and what her two sons taught her. "My boys have never cared about my mummy tummy, my high forehead or my dark skin. They love all of me. And so today, I'm learning to love me for all of me."
- Dorit Palvanov asked what the world would look like "if mothers passed down a different baton to their daughters. A baton based on confidence, energy and pleasure instead of a baton of sacrifice, guilt and shame."
- Stephen Elliot closed with: "The concept of family is too big. Don't be defined by a definition. Be yourself. I'm Stephen Elliot, and I have family."
- Sharon Babineau, Joseph Fackenheim and Susheela Ramachandran completed the lineup.
Meet the Judges Who Made It All Happen
- Dang Nguyen, Speaker Slam®'s 2019 Inspirational Speaker of the Year
- Armin Shafee, The Coaches Coach and CEO of New Way Thinking Company
- Ian Tyson, Speaker, Author and Facilitator
- Tabitha Rose, Founder of Life to Paper Publishing and Life to Legacy Foundation
Each judge had one minute of feedback after every speech.
Thank You
Thank you to the volunteers who made a live event possible in a difficult year, to the audience in the theatre and at home, and to every speaker who brought their family's story to the stage.
Meet the full lineup in Meet the Speakers for Family 2020 and the panel in Meet Your Judges for Family 2020.
Watch Every Speech from Family 2020
