MARC BAMUTHI JOSEPH BRINGS "THE BREAK/S" TO MADISON
WISCONSIN UNION THEATER | 8PM | $12 STUDENT, $28 GENERAL
Many of the new performance aesthetics being researched and presented on this campus fall under the context of “hip hop theater.” This label, still young and ambiguous, has been the mechanism pushing the popular culture of the last 30 years to find its place in the more traditional medium of theater. Through this push, we have seen many of the elements of hip hop culture explored within a number of groundbreaking productions. From hip hop’s conception in the Bronx, the genre spread around the world and landed back in New York again in Broadway shows like In The Heights. Theater has become fertile ground for artists of the new generation to create, invent and provoke. Our April 24 feature Marc Bamuthi Joseph does no less, pioneering this budding new aesthetic. Marc is also the founder of our very own Line Breaks series.
I met Marc when I was 14 years old, a struggling high school student actively pursuing all the wrong things. He taught an after school writing workshop on my campus at every Wednesday afternoon and I was tricked into attending by a close friend. I left that first day in a whirlwind of confusion. On one hand, this was not a “rap club” as my homegirl had promised, but on the other, I had just met someone that had done more for me creatively in two hours than teachers who had tried to engage me for years.
I came back every Wednesday after that. In the workshop, Marc introduced me to poetry, to inventive articulation, to channeling existing frustration and energy into a mechanism for growth and change through the arts. He emphasized the importance of education, of absorbing all the tools at your disposal and utilizing them to advocate for yourself and others.
His students and protégés around the Bay Area watched in awe and excitement as he demonstrated the possibilities of our own art through himself. Marc became a fixture in local newspapers, made the cover of the San Francisco Bay Guardian and won their GOLDIE award, was featured on HBO’s Def Poetry, popped up in XXL magazine, and became an inaugural recipient of the United States Artists Rockefeller Fellowship. While all of this was happening, he continued to work with his students on their craft.
As many of his students – including me – got older, we too began to travel with our work, finding ourselves within the mediums introduced to us through his guidance. As we traveled, we found that he had created this atmosphere of education and motivation everywhere he set foot. Across the country I heard stories about his impact, his ability to inspire, and his gift with teaching through his own art. From its early conceptions in the Bay Area scene to a now-international impact, Marc’s work has been muse to so many other practitioners searching for ways to reinvent the borders of the stage. Not only has he nurtured his own craft, but he has managed to keep his role as an educator at the forefront of his agenda. His recent projects include Life is Living, a national campaign that uses a new form of green spoken storytelling that represents the diverse and changing perspectives on what it means to be environmentally just. In addition, he continues to nurture a number of budding playwrights and performers through his popular Living Word Theater Projects. Among the artists thriving under this program is the young lady who first dragged me to his workshop in high school, Chinaka Hodge. Chinaka premiered her first full-length ensemble commissioned production at Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco. The show ran for five weeks and was directed by none other than Marc Bamuthi Joseph.
Marc’s craft has taken him all over the world, to Bosnia, Panama, the Netherlands, Senegal, Columbia and beyond. His art transcends language, using the now-global culture of hip hop as a bridge between borders. Amidst his travels, Marc completed a residency here at UW-Madison, where he ignited the sparks of the First Wave program and created the Line Breaks series. At this year’s Line Breaks Festival, Marc Bamuthi Joseph returns to present his newest work The Break/s, a narrative mixtape come to life about his global experience with hip hop culture, told through the body.
By Rafael Casal, Creative Director OMAI/First Wave
