Now established as one of the most exciting names on the Irish spoken word scene, in her short career Natalya O’Flaherty has emerged from the dankest of dive bars of the Dublin scene perform at some of the country’s most prestigious cultural centres, exciting events and high profile media slots. Her words carry hard hitting notions and criticisms of modern Ireland tackling everything from, so called, daddy issues to drug abuse.
Having found her voice through the cheap rhymes and hard hitting nature of spoken word, an appearance as part of the St Patrick’s Day Festival Young Blood concert at the National Concert Hall brought her to the attention of many, especially the Word Up Collective – whom she joined in 2018. Performances followed at the GPO, RTE Culture Night (at the request of Laureate na nÓg Sarah Crossan) Electric Picnic, Red Bull’s Free Gaff, First Fortnight Festival and Glasdrum.
Commissioned to write a new piece for RTE’s A Woman’s World programme marking the centenary of the female vote in Ireland, she performed ‘Not Like The Other Girls’ on Irish flagship TV programme The Late Late Show to huge acclaim, invited onto Ryan Turbridy’s radio show the following week. She returned to the Late Late a month later for a second performance and in January will read the Democratic Programme at the Mansion House in Dublin as part of the 100th anniversary celebrations of the Dáil’s first sitting. Natalya made her UK debut at the London Irish Centre in February, followed by a multi-media headline show More Than Words at the Sugar Club in Dublin as part of Music Town 2019. Summer festival appearances include All Together Now, Knockanstockan, Body & Soul and Electric Picnic, where she reprised More Than Words for Dublin Theatre Festival.
Invited to collaborate with fast rising indie band Post Party by RTE 2FM, the pair’s take on Jape’s ‘Floating’ finds both artists pushing the boundaries of their own work to create something thrillingly new.
