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When Break Dancing Meets Poetry...
Photo of Marc Bamuthi Joseph by Bethanie Hines, courtesy of REDCAT
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Photo of Marc Bamuthi Joseph by Bethanie Hines, courtesy of REDCAT
Having earned accolades for his post-hip hop performance work from both national and international audiences, the former National Poetry Slam champion and Oakland, CA resident Marc Bamuthi Joseph/The Living Word Project brings the break/s: a mixtape for stage to REDCAT this Wednesday through Sunday.Having recently performed in the White House for President Obama's inauguration, promotional materials say that the new work "deftly combines Joseph's trademark rapid-fire wordplay and poetic reveries with phenomenal physical movement." This multimedia journey across Planet Hip-Hop is described as a percussive call-and-response with turntablist DJ Excess and multi-instrumentalist Ajayi Jackson, accompanied by video by Eli Jacobs Fantauzzi.
The artist has graced the cover of Smithsonian Magazine after being named one of America's Top Young Innovators in the Arts and Sciences in 2007 and his work has been enabled by several prestigious foundation awards, both public (NEA) and private (many). the break/s: a mixtape for stage is a deeply honest investigation into the conflicts between the performer's public identity as successful spoken word artist, and his private identity as young man coming of age in our globalized, multi-everything era. At turns self-deprecatingly funny and unsparingly frank, Bamuthi's dynamic, deeply felt stories track the rise of hip-hop from its homegrown local roots to a global cultural force--and the personal costs, chafing identity crises, and exacting racial and cultural expectations that came with this transformation
I've heard about him for a bunch of years and am stoked that he'll be here! Don't miss it!
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