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11/19/2003 Entry: "Marc Bamuthi Joseph"

"WORD BECOMES FLESH"
Thurs-Sat, Nov. 20-22, 2003
ODC Theater
3153 17th St. at Shotwell, SF
8pm sharp (2 shows Sat, 8 & 10pm)
$12-$15 admission

Def Poet, Youth Speaks mentor, Stanford University Artist-in-Residence, Second Sundays founder and host and 2003 SF Bay Guardian GOLDIE winner Marc Bamuthi Joseph presents a series of performed letters from father to unborn son.

“Rarely do word and movement mesh so seamlessly and elegantly that the audience is left with the thought that drives them. But such is the case with Marc Bamuthi Joseph (described as a hip-hop theatre artist) whose stories put sound and gesture on a single continuum of expression…”
— The Washington Post

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WORD BECOMES FLESH (WBF) is a fluid evening length choreopoem, the latest in a long tradition of narrative verse plays whose contributors range from Shakespeare to Ntozake Shange. Presented as a series of performed letters to his unborn son, the piece uses poetry, dance, live music and visual art to document nine months of pregnancy from a young single father's perspective. While women continue to fight for their right to make choices about their bodies, the elements of patriarchy and male privilege give a man the social right to choose domestic absenteeism, refraining from offering either emotional or financial support. WBF critically, lyrically, and choreographically examines this phenomenon. In the process we confront the intersection of the physical reality and mythology of the black male body from the cotton field to the athletic field to the digital plantation and all spaces in between. WBF fully showcases the unique crossroads of searing politics, theology, poetry, photography live music and endless avenues of black dance, including tap, modern, hip hop movement and West African dance.

Marc Bamuthi Joseph is a National Poetry Slam champion, Broadway veteran, featured artist on this season’s Russell Simmons’ Def Poetry on HBO and a recipient of a 2002 National Performance Network Creation commission. He is recently returned from Tokyo where he was presented during the 1st International Spoken Word Festival in June. His latest solo work Word Becomes Flesh represents the completion of his third play, having already staged De/Cipher (Theater Artaud and Yerba Buena Center, 2001) and No Man’s Land (ODC, 2002). Word Becomes Flesh has found a home in the seasons of
Seattle’s On The Boards, Houston’s Diverse Works, and the NYC Hip Hop Theater Festival at P.S. 122, among other national venues. Bamuthi’s performance schedule has carried him from dance apprenticeships in Senegal to teaching fellowships in Bosnia, where he conducted spoken word workshops with Croation and Serbian young people as a part of the Youth Against War project. His proudest work has been with Youth Speaks where he mentors 13-19 year old writers and curates the Living Word Festival for Literary Arts. This winter he will be in residence in Stanford University’s Drama Department, teaching Spoken Word and Community Action. His next project, Scourge, reflects on the plight of Haiti in the post-colonial New World, and is being developed while Bamuthi is a Phillis Wattis Artist-in-Residence at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. When not performing, Bamuthi can be found falling deeper in love with his son M’kai •

The Living Word Project & Youth Speaks

2169 Folsom St. S-100
SF, CA 94110
415.255.9035

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