Marc Bamuthi Joseph - University Musical Society

Transcription

05l06 Youth Education
Creative Teachers...Intelligent Students...Real Learning
Marc Bamuthi Joseph
Teacher Resource Guide
About UMS
One of the oldest performing arts presenters in the
country, UMS serves diverse audiences through multidisciplinary performing arts programs in three distinct but
interrelated areas: presentation, creation, and education.
With a program steeped in music, dance, theater, and
education, UMS hosts approximately 80 performances
and 150 free educational activities each season. UMS
also commissions new work, sponsors artist residencies,
and organizes collaborative projects with local, national as
well as many international partners.
While proudly affiliated with the University of Michigan
and housed on the Ann Arbor campus, UMS is a separate
not-for-profit organization that supports itself from ticket
sales, grants, contributions, and endowment income.
UMS Education and
Audience Development
Department
UMS’s Education and Audience Development Department
seeks to deepen the relationship between audiences and
art, as well as to increase the impact that the performing
arts can have on schools and community. The program
seeks to create and present the highest quality arts
education experience to a broad spectrum of community
constituencies, proceeding in the spirit of partnership and
collaboration.
The department coordinates dozens of events with over
100 partners that reach more than 50,000 people
annually. It oversees a dynamic, comprehensive program
encompassing workshops, in-school visits, master classes,
lectures, youth and family programming, teacher
professional development workshops, and “meet the
artist” opportunities, cultivating new audiences while
engaging existing ones.
UMS gratefully acknowledges the
following corporations, foundations,
and government agencies for their
generous support of the UMS Youth
Education Program:
Michigan Council for Arts and
Cultural Affairs
University of Michigan
Arts at Michigan
Linda and Maurice Binkow
Borders Group, Inc.
Chamber Music America
DailerChrysler Corporation Fund
Doris Duke Charitable Foundation
DTE Energy Foundation
Dykema Gossett, PLLC
Heartland Arts Fund
Dr. Toni Hoover in memory of
Dr. Issac Thomas III
JazzNet Endowment
JPMorgan Chase
Masco Corporation
National Dance Project of the New England
Foundation for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
Pfizer Global Research and Development,
Ann Arbor Labratories
ProQuest Company
Prudence and Amnon Rosenthal
K-12 Education Endowment Fund
TCF Bank
TIAA-CREF
Toyota Technical Center
UMS Advisory Committee
University of Michigan Credit Union
U-M Office of the Senior Vice Provost for
Academic Affairs
U-M Office of the Vice President of Research
Wallace Foundation
For advance notice of Youth Education events, join the
UMS Teachers email list by emailing
[email protected] or visit www.ums.org/education.
This Teacher Resource Guide is a product of the University
Musical Society’s Youth Education Program. Researched and
written by Omari Rush. Edited by Ben Johnson, Bree Juarez, and
Omari Rush. All photos are courtesy of the artist unless otherwise
noted.
05|06
UMS Youth Education
Word Becomes Flesh
Marc Bamuthi Joseph
Friday, March 10, 12 Noon
Power Center, Ann Arbor
TEACHER RESOURCE GUIDE
Table of Contents
About the Performance
*
*
6
7
Coming to the Show
The Performance at
a Glance
Bamuthi
Short on Time?
We’ve starred the
most important
pages.
Only Have
15 Minutes?
Try pages 7, 10, 17,
23, or 34
* 10
11
12
13
14
Marc Bamuthi Joseph
In His Own Words...
Haitian Heritage
Bamuthi the Educator
Bamuthi’s Word
Resources
* 53
54
57
58
59
60
61
* 62
63
Hip-Hop Theater
16
* 17
19
20
Hip-Hop Theater
Hip-Hop Origins
Hip-Hop’s Shaping
“Earliest Manifestations”
Spoken Word
* 23
24
26
28
29
31
32
Background
Poems in the Air
Poetry Mechanics
Poetry Games
Slam Poetry: FAQ
Slam Profile: Marc
Smith
Slam Scene: Local
Dancing Words
* 34
36
Tap Dance
Tap Greats
Bamuthi’s Influences
38
39
40
41
Afrika Baambaata
Ntozake Shange
Amiri Baraka
Sonia Sanchez
Lesson Plans
43
44
46
49
50
51
4 | www.ums.org/education
Curriculum Connections
Meeting Michigan Standards
The Vocabulary of Bamuthi
Bamuthi Vocabulary Word-O
Bamuthi Word Search Puzzle
Word Search Solution
54
UMS Permission Slip
Bibliography
Internet Resources
Recommended Reading
Recommended Recordings
Videos of Interest
Community Resources
Using the Resource Media
Evening Performance/
Teen Ticket Info
How to Contact UMS
Marc Bamuthi Joseph in Word Becomes Flesh.
About the
Performance
Coming to the Show (For Students)
We want you to enjoy your time in the theater, so here are some tips to make your Youth
Performance experience successful and fun! Please review this page prior to attending the
performance.
What should I do during the show?
Everyone is expected to be a good audience member. This keeps the show fun for everyone.
Good audience members...
• Are good listeners
• Keep their hands and feet to themselves
• Do not talk or whisper during the performance
• Laugh only at the parts that are funny
• Do not eat gum, candy, food or drink in the theater
• Stay in their seats during the performance
• Do not disturb the people sitting nearby or other schools in attendance
Who will meet us when we arrive?
After you exit the bus, UMS Education staff and greeters will be outside to meet you. They
might have special directions for you, so be listening and follow their directions. They will
take you to the theater door where ushers will meet your group. The greeters know that your
group is coming, so there’s no need for you to have tickets.
Who will show us where to sit?
The ushers will walk your group to its seats. Please take the first seat available. (When
everybody’s seated, your teacher will decide if you can rearrange yourselves.) If you need to
make a trip to the restroom before the show starts, ask your teacher.
How will I know that the show is starting?
You will know the show is starting because the lights in the auditorium will get dim, and a
member of the UMS Education staff will come out on stage to introduce the performance.
What if I get lost?
Please ask an usher or a UMS staff member for help. You will recognize these adults because
they have name tag stickers or a name tag hanging around their neck.
How do I show that I liked what I saw and heard?
The audience shows appreciation during a performance by clapping. In a musical
performance, the musicians and dancers are often greeted with applause when they first
appear. It is traditional to applaud at the end of each musical selection and sometimes after
impressive solos. At the end of the show, the performers will bow and be rewarded with your
applause. If you really enjoyed the show, give the performers a standing ovation by standing
up and clapping during the bows. For this particular show, it will be most appropriate to
applaud at the beginning and the ending.
What do I do after the show ends?
Please stay in your seats after the performance ends, even if there are just a few of you in your
group. Someone from UMS will come onstage and announce the names of all the schools.
When you hear your school’s name called, follow your teachers out of the auditorium, out of
the theater and back to your buses.
How can I let the performers know what I thought?
We want to know what you thought of your experience at a UMS Youth Performance. After
the performance, we hope that you will be able to discuss what you saw with your class. Tell
us about your experiences in a letter or drawing. Please send your opinions, letters or artwork
to: UMS Youth Education Program, 881 N. University Ave., Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1011.
Performance at a Glance
What is Word Becomes Flesh?
Word Becomes Flesh is a fluid evening-length “choreopoem” written in the form
of a narrative verse play. Presented as a series of performed letters to his unborn
son, the piece uses poetry, dance, and live music to document nine months of
pregnancy from a young single father’s perspective. These performed letters
incorporate elements of ritual, archetypes, and symbolic sites within the constructs
of hip-hop culture. Word Becomes Flesh evolves the realm of spoken word and
realizes the form’s theatrical potential as the poet/dancer cogently presents the
complex contradictions involved in race, using the stage as an open page, and
deftly writing the body as text. The work features Bamuthi and is accompanied
by three live musicians. Bamuthi says his work is a “Theatrical Exorcism” in which
the ghosts and mythological structures that inform our social norms are released.
Word Becomes Flesh premiered in November 2003 at the Alice Arts Center
(Oakland, CA) and subsequently tours nationwide.
Who is Marc Bamuthi Joseph?
Originally from New York City, Marc Bamuthi Joseph is an arts educator,
activist, and performer currently living in Oakland, CA. Since beginning a
career in performance poetry in 1998, Bamuthi has won numerous Slam Poetry
Competitions, and founded and continues to host Second Sundays, the nation’s
largest ongoing monthly spoken word gathering. Bamuthi’s first solo eveninglength work, Word Becomes Flesh, was commissioned by the National Performance
Network, La Peña, and the New World Theater. Bamuthi’s proudest work, however,
has been with Youth Speaks where he mentors 13-19 year
old writers, co-facilitates an interdisciplinary workshop, and
develops the Living Word Festival for Literary Arts.
“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 whose
stories put sound
and gesture on a
single continuum of
expression…”
- Washington Post
What is the length of the performance?
Word Becomes Flesh is approximately 75 minutes in length
and is a continuous work broken up into many individual
vignettes. Bamuthi says that theater has been a liberation for
him and that the 4 or 5 artists whose commercial picture you
see painted on a bus or that you see in a three minute music
video don’t speak for all hip-hop artists. For him the theater,
especially a 75-minute production, gives plenty of time to
speak for oneself. The pacing of the show varies, as do most
elements of this work; at times Bamuthi is spitting out rhymes
and moving at break-neck speed, while at other times he is
rhyming stationary with lyrical ease.
What kind of dance will I see in the show?
Next to the spoken word elements, dance is central to Word
Becomes Flesh and the progression of its story. Though one
of its segments focuses on tap, Bamuthi’s dancing morphs into and out of tap and
other styles throughout the work. Bamuthi has studied numerous dance styles:
modern tap, ballet, West African (Senegalese), popping/locking, and jazz. Each
style has added to his repertoire of movements and to his ability to tell a story--his
story--with his body. To Bamuthi, dance is just dance, and that’s what you will see
in the show. Adia Whittaker, dancer/choreographer, collaborated with Bamuthi on
the dance elements of Word Becomes Flesh.
Above: Bamuthi
drumming with
son, Kai, to whom
the letters of Word
Becomes Flesh were
written.
Performance at a Glance
What issues does Word Becomes Flesh address?
While women continue to fight for their right to make choices about their bodies,
the legacy of patriarchy and male privilege still allow a man the social right to
choose domestic absenteeism and refrain from offering either emotional or
financial support. Word Becomes Flesh critically, lyrically, and choreographically
examines this phenomenon. In the process, it confronts the intersection of the
physical reality and mythology of the Black male body from the cotton field to the
athletic field and all spaces in between. “On commercial radio, in music videos
and TV ads, young black males always seem to be at the club, surrounded by
women wearing almost nothing. If these guys are not at the club, they’re playing
basketball or football. My piece is a way to substantively deconstruct that media
image and re-examine black malehood in the 21st century,” says Bamuthi in a
Seattle Times article. From this objective various themes rise to the surface of the
work, are subtly and overtly weaved throughout the Word Becomes Flesh. Some
of the themes include the following:
Bamuthi from
www.scottchernis.com
Fraternity in the society and specifically in the African-American Culture
Boyhood to Manhood to Parenthood
Cycles: Life, Death, Birth
Race & Politics
How important is the music?
Live and original music accompany the spoken word drama of Word Becomes
Flesh, and has an integral role in the development of the work…it’s styles and
instrumentations shift as word becomes flesh. The trio of musical performers are
all close friends of Bamuthi: “Paris King, guitar and musical director, was my main
creator on my CD ‘Seeking.’ I introduced Ajai Jackson, drums and percussion,
to his wife and the mother of his three children, and Sekou Gibson, bass and
percussion, and I have been down for four years. We traveled to Haiti in 1999
together.” Bamuthi says, “I wanted to work with these men not just because they
are exceptionally talented and very diverse in terms of their sphere of influences
but because they also understand me, and each one has an emotional connection
to me in their own right. The music that was produced flowed organically from
the personal experience as well as from the musicality each person brought to the
project.”
Bamuthi
Marc Bamuthi Joseph
Title
Marc Bamthi Joseph: the Quadruple Threat
Teacher-Writer-Dancer-Spoken Word Artist
Marc Bamuthi Joseph is a National Poetry Slam champion, Broadway veteran,
featured artist on the past two seasons of Russell Simmons’ Def Poetry on HBO
and a recipient of 2002 and 2004 National Performance Network Creation
commissions. Originally from New York City and currently living in Oakland,
California, this acclaimed arts activist recently returned from Tokyo where he
was presented during the 1st International Spoken Word Festival and Santiago
de Cuba where he joined the legendary Katherine Dunham as a part of the
CubaNola Collective.
Marc Bamuthi
Joseph goes by
the self-chosen
name Bamuthi,
which means “of
the tree” in the
African N’debele
language.
Bamuthi entered the world of literary performance after crossing the sands of
“traditional” theater, most notably on Broadway in the Tony Award winning
The Tap Dance Kid and Stand-Up Tragedy. His evening-length 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, Washington, D.C.’s Dance Place and
New York’s Dance Theater Workshop among other national venues.
His work has been described as everything from “electrifying” (Houston
Chronicle), to “ever-elegant” (Washington Post) and has compelled the Seattle
Times to name him their “cutting edge performer of the year” for 2003. In their
recent review of Word Becomes Flesh, the New York Times declared his work to
be “eloquent. . .seamless. . .and remarkable.”
Bamuthi’s performance schedule has carried him from dance apprenticeships in
Senegal to teaching fellowships in Bosnia. His proudest work has been with the
organization Youth Speaks where he mentors 13-19 year old writers and curates
the Living Word Festival for Literary Arts. He recently served as an IDA resident
artist in Stanford University’s Drama Department, teaching Spoken Word and
Community Action.
His latest 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-inResidence at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Collaborators for
Scourge include renowned choreographer Rennie Harris, Grammy-nominated
composer John Santos, dramaturg Roberta Uno, and director Kamilah Forbes of
the New York City Hip Hop Theater Festival.
Since beginning a career in performance poetry in the Fall of 1998, Bamuthi
has been San Francisco’s Poetry Grand Slam winner three times, won the
1999 National Poetry Slam with Team San Francisco, and founded “Second
Sundays,” the nation’s first monthly spoken word gathering to generate
audiences of 500+. His local work recently earned him a GOLDIE award from
the San Francisco Bay Guardian, one of only seven awards given per year by
the staff of the Bay Area’s largest independent weekly. Nationally, he has been
a featured lecturer and performance artist at more than one hundred colleges
and universities including UC Berkeley, NYU, Brown University, the University of
Michigan, Bates College, Stanford University and the University of Massachusetts
at Amherst.
In His Own Words...
Bamuthi’s Artistic Statement
I was an English major in school. When I left Moorehouse I came to the Bay Area
on a teaching fellowship and was able to interact with my students not just on the
level of literature but particularly creating one’s own literature and sharing it and
performing it. So I started as a poet in ‘98, and you know its just been developing
as I’ve developing you know what I mean like as I feel like as artists as we get open
for ourselves and to ourselves our work reflects it, so that’s, that’s the process I
guess. And that really is the work, is the process you know what I mean.
My greatest wish is for people to shift in degrees less in their opinion than in their
emotional stance towards whatever it is that I’m talking about. I just don’t want
folks to remain neutral, to hear me and stay neutral, if I don’t move who I’m
speaking to than I’m not really communicating what I want to. That’s what I hope
for in my work, that it reaches people’s ears and they honestly confront what I’m
saying and change in some way by that.
Spoken word in the Bay Area more than in any
other place in the country is supported, is prolific,
is dynamic, is political, and has more relevancy
here than anywhere else in the country. I think
that a large part of the catalyst for that is the
amount of attention that young people are paying
to themselves, to the lyricism in popular culture,
in hip-hop culture and the way they are reacting
to it. They are creating music but also expanding
upon and creating a new form of lyricism, and I
think it trickles up rather than trickling down. The
youth get inspired by their mentors and by their
educators but we in turn see the force with which
young people are coming with their words and it
just pushes the whole form forward.
I came to the Bay Area to teach and got linked up with my students and for most
places that I wanted to take my students to just made me feel uncomfortable.
If they were as stale as some museums or as illegal as hip-hop clubs there really
wasn’t any place where I could go with my students. La Peña was the first place
where I could watch performances and really watch conscious hip-hop and soul
music and was my first exposure to spoken word, was here with my students.
For more info
about the La Peña
Cultural Center
visit
www.lapena.org
Since that time I’ve performed as part of the Collective Soul series, the Word
Descarga series, with Youth Speaks as part of their teen poetry slam, and I’ve been
super blessed because La Peña is commissioning my first evening length work
along with the National Performance Network. So I’ve gone from a teacher just
bringing his kids here to an artist in residence in about five years and that’s how
my relationship with La Peña has been and will be.
Haitian Heritage
Bamuthi is the first member of his Haitian family to be born in the United
States, and his decent informs aspects of Word Becomes Flesh.
Interesting Fact:
Prior to French
Independence Haiti
was known as
Saint Domingue,
also called
Pearl of the Antilles
due to its
enormous wealth
accumulated from
its monopoly over
sugar production.
Haiti is situated in the Caribbean and comprises the forested mountainous
western end of the island of Hispaniola (it shares its one third of the island with
the Dominican Republic). Its area includes the Île de la Gonâve, in the Gulf of the
same name; among other islands is La Tortue (Tortuga) off the north peninsula.
Haiti’s coastline is dotted with magnificent beaches, between which stretches lush
subtropical vegetation, even covering the slopes which lead down to the shore.
Port-au-Prince, the capital, is a magnificent natural harbour at the end of a deep
horseshoe bay.
The native Arawak Amerindians - who inhabited the island of Hispaniola when
it was discovered by Columbus in 1492 - were virtually annihilated by Spanish
settlers within 25 years. In the early 17th century, the French established a
presence on Hispaniola, and in 1697, Spain ceded to the French the western
third of the island - Haiti. The French colony, based on forestry and sugar-related
industries, became one of the wealthiest in the Caribbean, but only through the
heavy importation of African slaves and considerable environmental degradation.
In the late 18th century, Haiti’s nearly half million slaves revolted under Toussaint
L’Ouverture and after a prolonged struggle, became the first Black republic to
declare its independence in 1804 and was the first country in the Americas after
the United States to declare its independence. In spite of its longevity, Haiti has
been plagued by political violence for most of its history and is the poorest country
in the Western Hemisphere. Haiti is currently in a state of anomie following an
American-sponsored coup d’état on February 29, 2004 which resulted in the
expulsion of President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide, who had been re-elected in
2000 in an election dismissed by many
–including the Organization of American
State (OAS – as fraudulent.
Maps of Haiti with
varied perspectives
Bamuthi the Educator
Youth Speaks
Bamuthi is Artistic Director of Youth Speaks and in many circles is known
first as an educator and then as a performer.
Youth Speaks is the premier youth poetry, spoken word, and creative writing
program in the country. Founded in San Francisco in 1996, Youth Speaks has
helped spark the next generation of poets and writers lighting up stages and pages
in all corners of the land.
Creator of the dedicated Teen Poetry Slam, Brave New Voices, and the Bringing the
Noise Reading Series, Youth Speaks has set a new standard for young people and
the word. Its innovative free afterschool workshop program embraces the poetic
of today’s youth while encouraging active literacy and critical thought. Each year
Youth Speaks works with dozens of high school teachers to more effectively bring
poetry into their classroom.
Youth Speaks Mission
Youth Speaks is building the next generation of leaders through the written and
spoken word. Our innovative programs nurture and develop the youth voice and
promote positive social dialogue across boundaries of age, race, class, gender,
culture and sexual orientation. We encourage youth to find their own avenues
toward creative self-expression, and embrace the collaborative nature of group
dynamics and peer-to-peer education. By coupling public performance and
publication opportunities with educational workshops, mentoring programs, and
cooperative learning, Youth Speaks encourages active literacy, honest writing, and
critical thought.
“Just as
Shakespeare
and Homer
created poetry
specifically to be
performed, we’re
doing the same
thing. Except
we’re informed by
hip-hop culture,
so the work is
interdisciplinary,
it’s young, it’s
fast, and it
has what we
call narrative
integrity”
- Marc Bamuthi
Joseph
At Youth Speaks, the voices of youth matter. As part of a sweeping national
phenomenon, teenagers today are picking up the pen and taking hold of the
microphone with an energy and passion that crosses cultural, racial, class, gender,
sexual orientation, and language lines.
Poetry in particular has become a strong and accessible teaching tool, requiring
teens to develop an in-depth focus on language and literacy development. At a
time when public schools continue to cut back on arts education, Youth Speaks
offers teenagers free programming they otherwise could not find. In addition to
comprehensive literary arts educational programs, Youth Speaks has also grown to
pioneer the presentation of dedicated teen poetry slams, open mics, and spoken
word events.
For more info
visit
youthspeaks.org
All of our programs are open to teens, age 13-19, interested in the word. We do
not discriminate on the basis of content or academic performance, nor on the
basis of race, class, religion, political alignment, gender, or sexual orientation. Our
only criterion for inclusion is a high level of commitment. This approach has placed
Youth Speaks into a nationally recognized position as a leader in the youth poetry
and spoken word educational movement
Bamuthi’s Word
Visit UMS Online
www.ums.org/education
The primary characteristic of spoken word poetry, which is explained
on page 23 of this guide, is that it is poetry created to be read aloud.
So the very writing of Bamuthi’s verse here goes against the nature of
the art form, but is meant to serve as a sample of Bamuthi’s work and
also to provide an opportunity for you to image your interpretation
and see how it compares with that of the poet (this can be seen on the
enclosed Resource VHS at 00:23:30).
some where between mother earth and father time there’s a
spiraling myth about a father chasing the rising sun
a modern Sisyphus stuck behind a boulder of soul the father
is mythic and mystic a mystic a self destructing missile a miss
amidst a monolithic image of what he’s supposed to be
a father forever chasing the rising sun like the horizon rushing
to the seam of sky and sea…
*this transcription of Bamuthi’s spoken word in Word Becomes Flesh is purposefully written by
the guide editor without any punctuation and minimal formatting
The poster for Youth Sepaks’s Hip-Hop Theater Festival in the Bay area (www.youthspeaks.org/HHTF05.html)
Hip-Hop
Theater
Hip-Hop Theater
The term “Hip-Hop Theater” originated with Brookyn poet Eisa Davis in an
article in The Source magazine. There has been hesitance within the hip-hop
community to define the genre as many feel it will increasingly marginalize the
form and constrain artists. Why not it just be theater? As is human nature, we
have an affinity for labeling, and some fear if artists do not label and define it
themselves, someone else will, and an opportunity will be lost. Outside of a
formal theater venue, hip-hop theater can be experienced in its rawest forms at
poetry slams, fraternity and basketball-step performances, B’boy and DJ events,
and open mikes, each demonstrating its own artistic virtuosity, experimentation,
and dedicated audience following.
“[Hip-hop theater
is a] new hybrid
form has provided
new opportunities
for the storytellers
of this generation
to address issues
of social changes,
racism, cultural
displacement,
violence, and
oppression.”
- Marc Bamuthi
Joseph
Writer, Harry Elam says, “Hip Hop theater interjects hip-hop ethics and aesthetics
into theatrical form and content. According to playwright Robert Alexander, ‘For
something to be truly a hip-hop theater piece, it has to contain certain elements
of schizophrenia and rebellion, creativity and destruction. Hip-hop plays reflect
a dichotomous spirit of social and cultural resistance and reaffirmation. They
embrace the infectious, street-eis orthodoxy and survival instincts of hip-hop.
They exult in the expression of the singular virtuosity, the bravado, the machismo,
and verbal dexterity of the solo rapper rocking the mike.”
“While hip-hop theater is a new form of cultural expression, it still retains,
repeats, and revises the past as it pushes into the future. With its celebration
of language, meter, poetic strictures, verbal play and display, it hearkens back
to earlier traditions of oral expression in African-American culture, such as
the spoken word of Gil Scott-Heron and the Last Poets, and even to classical
theatrical conventions and the productive wordplay of William Shakespeare.
Hip-hop theater’s inclusion of actual, live rap music and DJ scratching and
sampling, its allowance for freestyle improvisation, its embrace of non-linearity,
and presentational direct address to the audience, breaks with conventional
theatrical realism and reflects contemporary artistic directions. And, at the same
time, hip-hop plays agitate and engage critical cultural issues, connecting back to
the oppositional aesthetics of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s
and the theater of LeRoi Jones. Like the earlier black revolutionary theater, these
plays prod and provoke. This is theater that in its form and content recycles
elements from the past, but with a new spirit of possibility and a new urgency
that speaks to the racial and cultural hybridity of today.”
Criteria for Hip-Hop Theater Works:
1. The work fits into the realm of theatrical performance, i.e. a
play, dance, act, one-man show, etc.
2. The work is by, about, and for the hip-hop generation,
or participants in hip-hop culture, or both.
3. The work employs the four major elements of hip-hop.
4. The work incorporates hip-hop’s wide range of aesthetics
Hip-Hop Origins
“I always knew that…for those who never heard this music, that if they had a chance to
hear this, they would have no choice but to love this. Because unlike all the other genres
of music, there are no boundaries to hip-hop. We can lyrically describe and talk about
anything that we want to. Musically, we could almost use anything. We don’t have to sing
in key. We don’t have to have a bridge or a chorus. It doesn’t matter. This particular style
of music…is it.”
- Grandmaster Flash
60s - The late 1950s and 60s saw the steep and steady rise of gangs, gang-related
violence, and drugs throughout New York. From this gang culture that dominated
the streets of the Bronx and Brooklyn rose hip-hop, which mirrored gang culture in
its emphasis on territorialism and battling, and provided an alternative to the death
and despair of gang culture through various forms of artist expression, i.e. dance,
music, art. DJs began to appear with “crews” and battled each other with jabs of
rhyme and rhythm. B-boying became a non-violent means of battling for territorial
supremacy.
70s (early) - While popular music was dominating the air waves, the DJs were
invigorating and thriving in the club and disco scenes. While this club scene was
for more mature audiences, young people increased their entertainment options
by throwing neighborhood parties at a house or rented community center in the
projects. The fathers of hip-hop, Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, and Grandmaster
Flash, were the DJs that hosted and spun records at these parties, and they became
pioneers in creating a physical and musical space for hip-hop to realize itself.
Elements of
Hip-Hop:
Music (DJ)
Dance (B’Boy)
Word/Rhyme (Rap/
Spoken Word)
Visual Art (Graffiti)
Sub-elements of
Hip-Hop:
Knowledge
Fashion
Curation
Parenting
70s (mid) – As hip-hop DJs such as Grand Wizard Theodore began to develop,
refine, and master unique spinning techniques, they begin to overshadow their
counterparts in clubs specializing in disco. DJs’ virtuosity and incorporation of an
MC was also drawing attention away from b-boying happening on the dance floor
(which itself was beginning to wane as the prominence of gangs faded). As the
visibility and popularity of DJs grew, many new DJs with “crews” emerged from
all parts, including DJ Baron and DJ Breakout, all hoping to dazzle listeners with
skillful and intricate routines. With this, hip-hop began to pervade the community.
70s (late) – Hip-hop’s appeal began to translate to dollar signs as parties with
covers got bigger, DJ crews grew in size, and records began to circulate (the Sugar
Hill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” was a smash hit!). Led by a wave of neophytes,
the culture unavoidably spread past the boundaries of the Bronx, and few sensed
that this simple diffusion would become a torrent of music, art, and style: hip-hop
culture.
left to right: DJ Kool Herc, Rapper’s Delight, a DJ spinning
Hip-Hop Origins
Title
“I am hip-hop. My everyday life is hop-hop: what I do, what I say, the way I dress, the
kind of music I listen to, seeing the graffiti on the walls all the time…it’s like my everyday
life. It’s in my blood. If you was to cut my veins, a bunch of music notes and records
would just start pouring right out, ya know? It’s just my life.”
- Grand Wizard Theodore
80s (early) – With the recording success of “Rapper’s Delight” and the
“Hip-hop’s origins
are multifaceted,
politically
conﬂicting,
and highly
complicated,
because we are
still living through
many of the same
conditions that
caused its birth.”
- from hip-hop
history book,
Yes, yes y’all
mainstream media coverage, hip-hop was going national. New labels and artists
were popping up everywhere and groups were taking their performances on the
road. Acts such as Grandmaster Flash, the Furious 5, and the Funky 4 + 1 were
becoming truly famous…the fortune part would come later.
80s (mid) – Hip-hop culture was booming and going world-wide. Hip-hop had
been in the face of New Yorkers for years – their notoriously graffitied subway
cars and street displays of music and dance – and now the world was starting to
get this same face time. Films such as Wild Style, Style Wars, and Beat Street,
documented and fictionalized the hip-hop lifestyle on the big screen, and pictures
on the cover of Time magazine brought the culture to newsstands and readers
across the globe. Hip-hop artists and break-dancers were even featured on one
of the largest world stages: the opening ceremony of the 1984 Olympic Games
in Los Angeles. Rappers like Run-DMC and L.L. Cool J. came onto the scene
as newcomers, took the culture away from the pioneers, and moved it into the
future.
80s (late) – A new and distinct hip-hop theme emerges that changes the
landscape: “gangsta rap.” Similar to the origin of hip-hop, this grew out of the
violence, drugs, and lifestyle of the ghetto. The lifestyle of artists such as Snoop
Doggy Dogg and Ice Cube becomes just as important as their style of rap.
90s and the future - The sound of hip-hop continues to change and evolve
as life conditions and technology change and people find alternate means of
expressing or escaping. Generations throughout the world continue to inherit,
reinterpret, and evolve the distinct spirit and style of hip-hop.
Hip-Hop’s Shaping
Several highly significant historical and cultural events shaped the
direction and development of hip-hop.
April 4, 1968
Civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, is assassinated.
Vietnam War
War between North and South Vietnam beginning in 1961. The US sided with
South Vietnam and committed troops to the conflict from 1963-1975.
Free speech movement
A student protest originating at the University of California, Berkeley in 1964. It
is thought to be the beginning of a series of student protests that would arise
throughout the country in the 1960s and 1970s.
Post Civil Rights Era
“At its root,
hip-hop culture is
about liberation.”
- Marc Bamuthi
Joseph
Disintegration of the Black Panther Movement
The Black Panthers was a revolutionary, Black nationalist organization in the
United States that formed in 1966, and grew to national prominence before
falling apart due to internal problems and suppression by the government,
especially the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
James Brown
The Godfather of Soul, having a distinct vocal style and intense raw energy.
P-Funk
P-Funk is the name for two bands, Parliament and Funkadelic and has also come
to be known as an abbreviation for “pure funk,” a genre of music embodied by
the George Clinton bands. Initially the P-Funk sound was clean-cut R&B music,
and as it developed became thick, complex, and loud with a psychedelic groove
and rock & roll sound.
Reaganomics
Ronald Reagan believed that government regulations and paperwork were
the real impediments to prosperity and growth. The main component of his
economic recovery program was a major reduction in the tax rate. This economic
plan is thought by some to have been highly detrimental to the Black middle and
lower class.
Drugs in the Black community; from heroin to crack
Fire bombing of the MOVE house in Philadelphia
In May 1985 Philadelphia city police bombed the MOVE house (short for
Movement, a radical Black revolutionary group) and let the Black middle-class
neighborhood of 60 houses burn. Five children and six adults died, and 250 were
left homeless.
New York’s inner city demographics
Southern Blacks living alongside Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Jamaicans, and a
handful of working-poor Whites.
Gil Scott-Heron
Pioneer of Rap
Jazz and R&B-infused street poet Gil Scott-Heron is considered to be one of
the godfathers of rap. He was born in 1949, raised by his grandmother, and
moved to New York at the age of 13. By the age of 23, Scott-Heron had already
published two novels and a book of poems. He met musician Brian Jackson
when both were students at Lincoln University, Pennsylvania, and they formed
the Midnight Band to play their original blend of jazz, soul and
prototype rap music. Small Talk At 125th And Lenox was mostly an
album of poems, but later albums showed Scott-Heron developing
into a skilled songwriter whose work was soon covered by other
artists. In 1973, Scott-Heron had minor hits, which were both
heavily jazz-influenced, and later released the hit disco-based protest
single, Johannesburg. During this period Scott-Heron began shifting
his musical interest to synthesizer-based sounds. His strongest
songs were generally his own barbed political diatribes, in which
he confronted issues such as nuclear power, apartheid and poverty
and made a series of scathing attacks on American politicians.
An important forerunner of today’s rap artists, Scott-Heron once
described himself as “interpreter of the Black experience”.
Boogaloo Sam
Creator of “Popping”
Boogaloo Sam was raised in Fresno, California, and was inspired to create his
own dance style after seeing legendary group the Lockers perform on television.
Around the years of 1975-1976 Sam created a set of movements that evolved
into the styles known today as popping and boogaloo (boog style). The name
came from the old James Brown song “Do the Boogaloo.” One day when
Sam was dancing around the house, his uncle said “Boy, do that boogaloo!” A
puzzled Sam asked his uncle, “What’s boogaloo?”. “That means you’re gettin’
down” his uncle replied. From that day on he was known as Boogaloo Sam. In
1977 Sam founded the Electronic Boogaloo Lockers, who later became known
as the Electric Boogaloos. Boogaloo is a dance style that uses every part of the
body and although fluid, is different from
the style know as waving. It involves using
angles and incorporating fluid movements to
make everything flow together, often using
rolls of the hips, knees, head. Making your
legs do weird things, and covering a lot of
space on stage using “walkouts” or other
transitions to get from one spot to the next
spot. Popping was another style of dance
also created by Sam. Currently Sam is still
getting down and is the active leader and
member of the EB’s. A true innovator of funk
styles, Sam has helped push the boundaries
to where they are today.
Don Campbell
Creator of “Locking”
In 1969, a young Black man by the name of Don Campbell was becoming
known among street dancers in Los Angeles for inventing a dance called the
“Campbellock” (he put out a record called “Do the Campbellock”). Don
Campbell took the hydraulic robotic movements, which were all about total
control and mixed it with wild, out of control body movement dances of the tapflash dance days plus exact stop and start movements and spiced it all with comic
facial expressions and clown-like costumes
to develop a whole new dance movement
which is still going strong called “Locking”
(Campbellocking to us old guys). The best way
to describe the movement of locking would be
thus: You know those little-figured toys that
are like inside-out puppets on small plastic
circular platforms or pedestals, and if you
press the bottom of the platform the figure
collapses real fast, then when you let your
finger up it goes back into shape? Well that’s
what locking looks like. The body moves out
of control then back into control snapping into
position, collapsing then snapping back. By
the Early ‘70s Don Campbell had put together
a whole crew of lockers called “The Lockers.”
One of the lockers was Shabadoo, the star of
Breaking, and Penguin, who was the chubby
locker named “Rerun” on the TV show What’s
Happening. The lockers of the early ‘70s wore
platform shoes, loud striped socks, pegged
pants that stopped at the knees, bright colorful
satin shirts with big collars, big colorful bow
ties, gigantic Apple Boy hats, and white
gloves. Seeing Campbell “locking” live was an
awesome sight.
Def Poets of HBO’s Def Poetry Jam.
Spoken Word
Background
In the context of poetry, spoken word generally refers to the idea that poetry
should be read aloud and heard (especially in the voice of the original poet).
Spoken word appeals to both the listener and the artist:
- listeners get to hear poets interpret their own verse and can more easily
glean the inspiration behind and spirit of the poem.
- poets get instant feedback from and a deeper connection with their
audience.
A distinction often made between spoken word and poetry is that spoken word is
written specifically to be performed, while generally poetry is meant to be read on
the page and may be recited aloud.
Spoken word exploded as a viable art form in the post-Vietnam war period…
before then it was just poetry. It emanates from the marginal sectors of society
and is bursting into the mainstream largely through youth. They are catching
up poetry to the today’s society, one that is faster and more aggressive than the
regal times of Whitman and even Frost. The cross-over of music into literature is
also propelling this stylistic shift. These aspects of spoken word are continually
strengthening its association with hip-hop culture.
Spoken word is also reintroducing literacy into the public eye because of its ability
to reach a greater part of the population that is not reading and doesn’t have
access to books and/or education. Renowned poet, Niki Giovanni, and others
contribute to this by emphasizing the spoken aspect of their poetry. Also, more
and more young people are beginning to write poetry for the voice, making
the art form very appealing to semi-literate youth and school drop-outs. In and
after school writing clubs for teens are becoming a popular place for youth
to freely express themselves, refine their craft, and learn from their peers and
mentors: mentors who are often professional writers or skilled spoken word artists
themselves. The accessibility of spoken word is exemplified in the “anyone can
be a poet, anyone can be a judge” ideology of Poetry Slams. This empowerment
is happening in coffee shops, bookstores, university/high school classrooms, and
small, cozy apartments.
Def Poetry Jam,
on cable network
HBO, is a golablly
televised venue
for the best of the
best spoken word
artists to display
their skills.
Russell Simmons
created the show
and has featured
Marc Bamuthi
Joseph in an
episode.
There are efforts across the country by companies like
Caedmon Records to build a treasury of poets reading
their own verse because for poetry to be lasting it must
be put to the printed page or recorded, and not just
heard at a slam or caught in passing. One thing lost in
recording poetry is that the art form has largely become
about the way the words are arranged on a printed
page and how punctuation is used; these elements
don’t translate on a recording. However, the poet’s
voice is gained in the process, with its own set of values.
As these values become realized by more and more
people, spoken word will continually develop and thrive
across many mediums and in various venues.
Poems in the Air
“Poems on the page, Poems in the air”
by Billy Collins, U.S. Poet Laureate
(an essay from The Spoken Word Revolution)
Billy Collins, a Poet
Laureate and American
phenomenon, has
gaining both high
critical acclaim
and broad popular
appeal. His last three
collections of poems
have broken sales
records for poetry and
his readings are usually
standing room only.
The typical Collins
poem opens on a clear
and hospitable note
but soon takes an
unexpected turn; poems
that begin in irony may
end in a moment of lyric
surprise. Thusly, Billy
Collins characterizes
his poetry as “a form
of travel writing” and
considers humor “a
door into the serious.”
- from the Steven Barclay
Agency
In recent decades, the phenomenon of the poetry reading has become as much
a regular part of our cultural menu as the chamber music recital or the film
festival. Readings are taking place at colleges and libraries, bars and coffee shops,
bookstores, galleries, and at least one Laundromat that I’ve heard of. In some
cases, a handful of devotees form a ritual semicircle around the poet, but there
are also mega-readings attended by hordes, notably the Sunken Garden readings
in Connecticut that boast audiences of up to three thousand, enough to cause
“poetry traffic jams.” Then, of course, there is the mother of all poetry powwows, the Dodge Festival, a biennial four-day event in Waterloo Village, New
Jersey, that attracts more than ten thousand people each year. It is likely that at
this very minute, somewhere in the world someone is standing behind a podium
with a handful of poems, tentatively tapping a microphone with one finger,
preparing to lift poetry off the page and into the air. What is the draw? Why insist
on being in the presence of an author when we have already met him at his best?
Why not submit to our print culture and stay home with a cup of tea and open a
book?
For one thing, the poetry reading offers a double connection: one with the
poet who stands up from the page and delivers, and another with the audience
united by a common interest. Insofar as poems are composed by the ear, they
are designed to be heard as well as read. To hear a poem is to experience its
momentary escape from the prison cell of the page, where silence is enforced,
to a freedom dependent only on the ability to open the mouth – that most
democratic of instruments – and speak.
Another reason may lie in the oral reading’s ability to return readers to a time
preceding the dominance of print, when a new dimension of silence (and a new
dimension of loneliness according to Marshall MacLuhan) was added to the
experience of verbal communication. To sit in a room with others and witness
a breathing poet saying his or her own poem aloud provides a relief from the
isolation of print, not to mention more existential feelings of estrangement. In
the reading, poet and audience are bodily exposed to one another and take on
the visibility they mutually lack in the silent transaction of the page. In this light,
the public reading is a throwback, a resurrection of the Romantic notions of
spontaneity and genius as opposed to the modernist sense of the author as a
reclusive inscriber of verbal patterns or, more extremely, the postmodernist sense
of the author as a false construction, the fond illusion of old-fashioned readers.
These days, when academic discourse wants to replace the warmth of voice with
the chilliness of text, hearing a poem said out loud reminds us of the spoken
origins of poetry and the communal nature of the exchange. Poetry readings
would not be so popular if these gains did not offset the possible misalignments
that can be part of the experience: like the eerie feeling a poet might have when
surrounded by strangers who seem to know his or her secrets
Poems in the Air
and the almost inevitable failure of the author – the one with the bad tie and
worse table manners – to match the audience’s original encounter with him or
her in discreet lines of verse. The public reading may convey the dramatic illusion
that the words are issuing forth directly from the source, as if the poem were not
merely being recited but spontaneously composed on the spot. The vocal poet is
an echo of the Orphic singer, the embodiment of the ancient lyric impulse. The
reading of a poem out loud turns authorship into a performance, as commentator
Peter Middleton put it, and may even be said to “re-establish the authority of
authorship in the face of its downsizing by the academic industry.” So, hearing a
poem lends the experience of literature an immediacy, a reality not found on the
page where we must conjure up the ghost-form of the poet who
wrote the poems.
Eamon Grennan recently told me that he often follow the reading
of a poem in his workshop with the question “Is anybody there?”
That is, do you hear in the poem a voice speaking, though which
the presence of another person can be easily inferred? The orally
delivered poem brings to us the sound and idiolect of a person’s
voice, a quality often muffled between the covers of a book or
intentionally obliterated by poets who seek a purity of language
rinsed of human speech.
What the live reading and the recorded reading provide, then, is
voice. Surely, we hear an inner voice when we hold a book of poetry
in our hands and read in silence, but it is not the voice of the poet.
Rather, it is our own internal voice that claims the poem. The intimacy
of poetry even allows us to feel that we have replaced the poet
just as we replace the singer – and even the composer if we care
to – when we sing along with the radio in a car. A dependable sign
that you like a poem is the pleasurable feeling that you are actually
inventing it as you read it. Further, the immediacy of a live reading
extends to the listener a degree of participation. Paying attention
approaches being a creative act when we realize that the poem is
being enacted beyond our control – the control we exercise with a
text by pausing, rereading, and skipping. Yet there is a pleasurable
passivity in listening. We submit to the pace of the reader who
governs the experience; we relax into a state of acceptance not
common to reading – we can even close our eyes. Also, in a live
Billy Collins,
reading we lose the equilibrium of the typographical shape of the
poet laureate
poem; the linebreaks and stanzas dissolve into pure sound. And as
Philip Larkin pointed out, we cannot see the end of the poem coming
and make preparations for it to be over. A reader walks at this own pace; a listener
travels downhill by sled.
Listening to a poet read the poem, we may feel that he or she has repossessed
the poem, taken it out of our heads and broadcast it to the world. But the poem
also may seem refreshened, newly minted. When oral delivery is at its best, time
flows in reverse. All the books containing the poem are returned to the warehouse;
the printing press runs backward; the manuscript is mailed back to the poet who
stands before us now with a page in his hand – the original sheet, let’s say – and
reads the poem as if for the very first time.
Poetry Mechanics
from A Capsule Course in Black Poetry Writing
by Gwendolyn Brooks
A Few Hints toward the Making of Poetry:
Gwendolyn Brooks (b.
1917) has been the poet
laureate of Illinois since
1968. She grew up in the
Chicago neighborhood
called Bronzeville
and became the first
African American to
win a Pulitzer Prize for
poetry in 1950 for Annie
Allen. Brooks began
writing poetry when
she was seven. Her
first book of poetry, A
Street in Bronzeville,
was published in 1945,
and from there she went
on to have a number of
othe poetry published,
as well as a book of
children’s poetry and an
autobiographical novel.
1. Language – ordinary speech. Today we do not say “Thou saintly skies of
empyrean blue through which there soarest sweetest bird of love.” Forget
ecstasy, ethereal, empyrean, wouldst, canst. Do not use ‘neath, e’er, ne’er, ‘mid,
etc.
2. If you allude to a star, say precisely what that star means to you. If you feature
a garden, speak of that garden most personally. If you have murdered in a
garden, the grass and flowers (and weeds) will mean something different to you
than to someone who has only planted or picked.
3. Try telling the reader a little less. He’ll, she’ll love you more and will love your
poem more, if you allow him to do a little digging. Not too much, but some.
4. Avoid clichés.
gentle flowers – sad lament – deepest passion – the wind howled
Occasionally a cliché can be redeemed:
The gentle flowers shrieked and killed the sun.
The sad lament was lovely, and I laughed.
For here the pictures and concepts are so outrageous that the cliché is
elevated into a contribution. Here is a cliché-stanza composed by me for your
redemption. Redeem each line:
Sweet sun, wouldst thou but shine o’er all
With thine ethereal ecstasy,
And chase dark clouds from out mine soul
For all thy fair eternity.
5. In a poem (and I believe in any piece of writing) every word must work. Every
word, and indeed every comma, every semi-colon (if such are used – they
needn’t be). Every dash (and poets should use few dashes: they are usually
indeterminate, weak) has a job to do and must be about it. Not one word or
piece of punctuation should be used which does not strengthen the poem.
Gwendolyn Brooks,
poet laureate
6. Loosen your rhythm so that it sounds like human talk. Human talk is not exact,
is not precise. Sometimes human talk “has flowers,” but if it “has flowers,”
those flowers (as I have said in my poem “Young Africans”) “must come out of
the road.”
7. You must make your reader believe that what you say could be true. Think of
your efforts to be convincing and entertaining when you are gossiping. You
use gesture, touch, tone-variation, facial expression. Try persuading your
wordage – SOMEHOW! – to do all the things your body does when forwarding
a piece of gossip.
8. Remember that ART is refining and evocative translation of the
materials of the world!
Title
Poetry Mechanics
Poetic Devices
The following devices are commonly used in poetry and other writing to help the
writer convey and the reader/listener understand more clearly various emotions,
images, and sensations:
Alliteration
The repetition of words with the same initial sound.
Claire continued cutting carrots carefully.
Puns
The use, sometimes humorous, of a word in a way that
suggests two or more interpretations.
“I’ve always regarded archery as an aimless sport,” he said
with a quiver.
Rhymes
Words that have the same ending sounds.
The tiny bird in the tree
Was singing songs just for me.
Metaphors
A figure of speech in which things are compared by stating
that one thing is another.
The clouds are cottonballs in the sky.
Similes
A figure of speech in which things are compared using
the words “like” or “as”.
The surface of the water looked as smooth as glass.
Onomatopoeia
Words that sound like the objects or actions to which they refer.
A pesky mosquito buzzed around my head.
Personification
A figure of speech in which objects are given human qualities .
The sun played peek-a-boo with the clouds.
Assonance
The repetition of words with the same vowel sounds.
Mold only grows on old objects
Can you find any
of these devices in
this poem:
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
-Robert Frost
Repetition
The repeating of words, phrases, lines, or stanzas.
There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home,
there’s no place like home.
Poetry Games
When playing these poetry games, keep in mind that poetry merely expresses the
senses and, therefore, doesn’t have to rhyme or resemble other poems.
Producing raw material
“Poetry springs
from a level below
meaning; it is a
molecular thing, a
pattern of sound
and image.”
- Nuala Ní Dhomhnail
1. Imagine you are slightly/very unhinged and completely without inhibition.
2. Take your pen and piece of paper and, limiting yourself to exactly 5 minutes,
rave. Don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, and for the moment at least,
not about meaning. DON’T 2.LOOK BACK, DON’T THINK, and DON’T STOP.
3. Now pick out five phrases that you like and try to connect them
4. Now read it aloud
How to Haiku
Write a Haiku: a short poem, of Japanese origin, comprised of a total of three
lines, the first line being five syllables in length, the second being seven syllables,
and the third again being five syllables. Try writing three a day in a journal, and if
you have no ideas one day, try to make a Haiku about that. Examples:
On the cardboard box
holding the frozen wino
Fragile: Do not crush
- Nicholas A Virgilio
What’s in my headphones?
Nothing but Hip-Hop music,
Jay-Z, Tupac, Nas!
- from hiphopintheclass.com
Postcards
Take a postcard, or a small collection of postcards (a mixture of people, places,
and objects seem to work best). Now imagine that these postcards are a sort of
slide show intended to compliment and illustrate your poem. Write the first draft
of the poem.
Objective Voices
Choose an object in the room or wherever you are. Imagine this object has a
voice, a history, desires, and fears. Write a poem in the object’s voice.
Answering the Call
Take a quotation from a book of quotations, or take a line or two from a poem by
someone else. Respond to it as if it were written specifically for you.
Lost Property Office
Imagine yourself in the Lost Property Office of your own life, where all the things
you have ever lost (physical and otherwise) are stored. Stepping in there, describe
what you see and feel.
Blind Poetry
“Poetry is what Milton saw when he went blind,” said Don Marquis, and
Lewis Carroll said, “Take care of the senses and the sounds will take care of
themselves.” So, sharpen your senses. Imagine you’re blind, or deaf. Describe
what you might sense at a football match, a concert, the birth of a child, etc. Or,
where you are right now, focus one sense, say your sense of smell, and take in the
scene.
Tell Lies
The Estonian word for poet – luuletaja – also means “liar”. Tell some whoppers.
Bear in mind Jean Cocteau’s ” The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.” Lie
your way to a truth.
Slam Poetry: FAQ
What is poetry slam?
Poetry slam is the competitive art of performance poetry and equally emphasizes
writing and performance, encouraging poets to focus on what they’re saying and
how they’re saying it.
What is a poetry slam?
A poetry slam is an event in which poets perform their work and are judged
by members of the audience. Typically, the host or another organizer select the
judges, who are instructed to give numerical scores (on a zero to 10 or one to 10
scale) based on the poet’s content and performance.
Who gets to participate?
The vast majority of slam series registered by Poetry Slam, Inc. are open to
everyone who wishes to sign up and can get into the venue. Though everyone
who signs up has the opportunity to read in the first round, the lineup for
subsequent rounds is determined by the judges’ scores. Judges are randomly
chosen from the audience, score poets on a scale of one to ten.
What are the rules?
Though rules vary from slam to slam, the basic rules are:
• Each poem must be of the poet’s own construction;
• Each poet gets three minutes (plus a ten-second grace period) to read one
poem, if the poet goes over, points will be deducted from the total score;
• The poet may not use props, costumes, or musical instruments;
• Of the scores the poet received from the five judges, the high and low scores
are dropped, and the middle three are added together, giving the poet a total
score of 0-30.
Characteristics of
Slams:
personal
confessional
aggressive
recitation
encouragement of
audience reaction
Are the rules the same from slam to slam?
Some slams have slight variations on the rules that Poetry Slam, Inc. has developed,
but most adhere to these basic guidelines. The key rule in slam is that judges are
selected from the audience, and those scores are used to determine who advances.
Who organizes slams?
Slams are typically organized by poets interested in cultivating poetry in their
communities. The vast majority work on a volunteer basis, and the price of
admission typically goes toward either keeping the show running or toward special
projects, like funding a slam team’s trip to the annual National Poetry Slam.
How often do they happen?
It depends on the community, but typically, slams happen on a weekly, bi-monthly,
or monthly basis.
How does it differ from an open mike reading?
Slam is engineered for the audience, whereas a number of open mike readings
are engineered as a support network for poets. Slam is designed for the audience
to react vocally and openly to all aspects of the show, including the poet’s
performance, the judges’ scores, and the host’s banter.
Slam Poetry: FAQ
Poetry Slam
motto:
“The points are
not the point; the
point is poetry.”
(it’s a reminder
to poets and
organizers that
the goal of slams
is to grow poetry’s
audience)
- slam master,
Allan Wolf
What can the audience do?
The official MC spiel of Poetry Slam, Inc. encourages the audience to respond
to the poets or the judges in any way they see fit, and most slams have adopted
that guideline. Audiences can boo or cheer at the conclusion of a poem, or even
during a poem.
At the Uptown Slam at Chicago’s Green Mill Tavern,where poetry slam was
born, the audience is instructed on an established progression of reactions if
they don’t like a poet, including finger snapping, foot stomping, and various
verbal exhortations. If the audience expresses a certain level of dissatisfaction
with the poet, the poet leaves the stage, even if he or she hasn’t finished the
performance. Though not every slam is as exacting in its procedure for getting
a poet off the stage, the vast majority of slams give their audience the freedom
and the permission to express itself.
What kind of poetry is read at slams?
Depends on the venue, depends on the poets, depends on the slam. One of
the best things about poetry slam is the range of poets it attracts. You’ll find a
diverse range of work within slam, including heartfelt love poetry, searing social
commentary, uproarious comic routines, and bittersweet personal confessional
pieces. Poets are free to do work in any style on any subject.
How do I win a poetry slam?
Winning a poetry slam requires some measure of skill and a huge dose of luck.
The judges’ tastes, the audience’s reactions, and the poets’ performances all
shape a slam event, and what wins one week might not get a poet into the
second round the next week. There’s no formula for winning a slam, although
you become a stronger poet and performer the same way you get to Carnegie
Hall — practice, practice, practice.
What is the National Poetry Slam?
The National Poetry Slam is the annual slam championship tournament, wherein
three to five-person teams from all over North America and Europe gather to
compete against each other for the national title. It has become part Super Bowl,
part poetry summer camp, and part traveling exhibition. Staged in a different
city each year, the National Poetry Slam has emerged as slam’s highest-profile
showcase.
What is the difference between slam poetry and poetry?
That’s not the right question to ask. There is no such thing as “slam poetry”
even though the term “slam poet” seems to have gained acceptance. Those
who use the term “slam poetry” are probably thinking more of hip-hop poetry
or loud, in-your-face, vaguely poetic rants. The more useful question to ask is
“What is the difference between spoken word and poetry?” Spoken word is
poetry written first and foremost to be HEARD. At any given slam, much of the
work presented could be called “spoken word”.
Slam Profile: Marc Smith
“any requests?” – poem by Marc Smith
Do you wish to make a request?
Why not
Request that I hang myself upside down
On a tight wire trapeze
Suspended by the knees?
That I Spin myself around and around
In an ever-widening gyre?
Bristles on my fingertips!
A red sable brush in my mouth!
An artist at the edge of an ever-changing universe
Marking each lap of his dangling gyration
With a jittery brush stroke smear
Poking ... jabbing ... stretching
The highly elastic fabric
Of his brutal imagination.
Is that enough?
Is it enough to be just part of the arena?
A clown, a father, a popcorn go-getter?
An impatient grandmother, a tattoo man,
The trainer of bulky gray elephants
Swaying this way and that
Moving
Through the shadows
Of Everyman’s town!
LADIES and GENTLEMEN! Boys and girls!
It is my extreme pleasure to present to you
The analytical manifestation of a thousand thousand
Unrelated dreams
From a hundred hundred
Isolated towns
Under a billion trillion
Dazzling stars.
A universe ... grinning ...
Like an enormous pock-marked face,
A shadow on the street corner
Ladies and Gentlemen! Ladies and Gentlemen!
Before we line you up for your nightmare march
Through our painted panoramic arena, LET’S ASK!
Are there any requests?
Are there any last requests
Before the lights go dim
And the whistling steam begins to play?
Make a request!
Request that the artist fly without a net
And never miss the bar.
Or miss perhaps!
Depending on your seat, the price of your clothes,
The position you hold in regard to truth and beauty.
WATCH!
As the next performer takes the scaffold ...
The Ringmaster cracks his whip!
Calliope steams!
The black and blue red-faced clowns hail a laugh!
Ladies and Gentlemen ....
Marc Kelly Smith - founder, Poetry Slam
Marc Kelly Smith is best known for bringing to the world
wide poetry community a new style of poetic presentation
that has spawned one the most important social/literary
arts movements of our time. As stated in the PBS television
series, The United States of Poetry, a “strand of new poetry
began at Chicago’s Green Mill Tavern in 1987 when Marc
Smith found a home for the Poetry Slam.” Since then,
performance poetry has spread throughout the country
and across the globe to hundreds of cities, universities,
high schools, festivals, and cultural centers. Each year,
teams from American and European cities compete in the
National Poetry Slam, an extravagant festival blending
thousands of poetic voices. Not surprisingly, the Slam
has taken root internationally and includes on-going
performances in Germany, UK, Switzerland, France, Sweden,
Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Czech Republic, and Singapore.
Born on the southeast side of Chicago, Smith’s innate sense
of rhythm and unflinching realism has made him one of
the country’s most compelling performers. Full of grit, his
performances break poetic boundaries, giving audiences an
acute vision of what poetry is and what it can be. Smith
has performed and hosted at The Smithsonian Institute, The
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, been featured on CNN,
National Public Radio, and his work has been cited by the
Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, New
York Times. Moving his talents forward into an even more
dramatic realm, he has written and produced two stage plays
and is currently collaborating several performing arts projects.
Marc Smith
Slam Scene: Local
Over the years, teens and adults alike have become captivated by the art of performance,
slam, or spoken word poetry. And many Washtenaw County venues have made room for
the genre’s hip-hop beats and word slinging.
This is from an
article titled,
“Wordslinging: The
Art of the Slam,” by
Katherine Lowrie
in Current, with
additional info
added about the
Neutral Zone.
Jeff Kass, founded Ann Arbor Wordworks, a troupe of writers dedicated to the
art of performance poetry. “As a writer, it’s very seductive to get instantaneous
feedback on your work. You hear applause, talking -- it’s immediate gratification...
these opportunities to speak honestly and from the heart are becoming more and
more rare in our culture. It is a connecting force. Performance poetry showcases
in a meaningful and powerful way what it really means to care about words and
literature and learning to understand your place in the world, that is what this
movement is about.” Wordworks is comprised of graduates from the Neutral
Zone’s VOLUME Youth Poetry Project and slammers from UM and EMU and is
facilitated by slam poet Kass, an English and creative writing teacher at Pioneer
High School.
The Neutral Zone is a youth-oriented, youth-advised place offering a safe
environment for teenagers to have fun, socialize with friends and new people,
learn new things and satisfy their need for a home away from home, especially
during high risk hours. Their VOLUME Youth Poetry Project is a program that
facilitates youth writing and performing poetry. The group’s poetry is nationally
recognized and award-winning, and can be read in the bi-annual magazine that
VOLUME publishes. Their monthly “First Thursday Open Mic Readings” at the
Neutral Zone typically attract over a hundred audience members and upwards
of twenty-five of them take the stage to read their work. VOLUME also records/
releases a CD of spoken word poetry on YOR Records and hosts an annual and
largely popular celebration of language and literacy — Poetry Night in Ann Arbor
— which draws over 600 people to the Power Center in December.
Contact
information for
each of these
groups and events
can be found on
page 59 of this
Guide.
The Heidelberg on 215 North Main Street (Ann Arbor) holds cash-prize poetry
slams on the first Tuesday of each month. Poets perform original works and are
scored by judges in the audience who rate poems on a scale of 0-10. Poet David
Rubin, who frequently performs at the Heidelberg, says today’s poetry slams and
performance poetry attracts those who care about ideas and literature since it
provides a platform for political and social commentary and often reflects “the
voice of the disenfranchised and the outsider.”
Mariama Lockington, a UM sophomore and slam team member, frequently attends
Poetry Slams at the Michigan Union. “I am pretty hooked,” Lockington says.
“The story telling aspect of it, the oral tradition of it is something you want to
convey to the audience while figuring out how words work together.” One of the
biggest challenges to slamming, Lockington said, is finding new and meaningful
ways to say something. “A lot of people have very important messages to convey
in their poetry. It is an activism art you usually have a message in terms of politics
or social issues. It is a tool for talking about issues rather than making a speech.”
Derrick Jackson is volunteer coordinator for the Ozone House’s Project speakOUT,
a spoken word program which organizes a once-a-month Lyricist Lounge at the
Ypsilanti drop-in center, as well as in-school workshops and performances including
Poetry in the Park at Riverside Park in Ypsilanti in May and August. “When we look
at hip-hop culture and how pervasive it is we find a lot of kids who are relating in
the classroom and on the streets to rap music. Rap is really spoken word and it is
so universal. Any young person can sit down and write their experience.”
Famous tap dancer and actor Gregory Hines.
Dancing
Words
Tap Dance
Title
Bamuthi on Dance
“Dance is part of my language,” Bamuthi says, adding that it would be completely
impossible for him to deliver his verse stock-still. “In the same way that if you and I
were sitting face-to-face, I couldn’t look at you and not blink. It’s very much a part
of how I be. And how I speak. And what I want you to see. It’s a means of being
bilingual, really, and speaking two languages at once.”
Tap dance was born in the United States during the 19th century, and today is
popular all around the world. The name comes from the tapping sound made
when the small metal plates on the dancer’s shoes touch a hard floor. This lively,
rhythmic tapping makes the performer not just a dancer, but also a percussive
musician.
Tap’s evolutionary grandparents may well have been the following:
1. African dance to drum rhythms
2. African welly boot dance in which dancers wear boots that are
embellished with bells, so that they ring as the dancers stamp on the ground.
3. Spanish flamenco, where nails are hammered into the heel and the front part
of the dancers’ shoes so that the rhythm of their steps can be heard
4. Step dancing, the generic term for dance styles where the footwork is the
most important part of the dance. The Irish Dance tradition includes some
of the best known forms of step dance, often marked by rigidly held upper
body. The most common are the reel, the hornpipe, the jig
5. Clogging, for example from Lancashire, where there may well be no
accompanying music, just the noise of the shoes
Tap Shoes
History
Tap dance began in the 1830s in the Five Points neighborhood of New York City
as a fusion of the African Shuffle and Irish, Scottish, and English step dances.
Perhaps the most influential of all were the syncopation of African music and
dance and the Irish jig. Dancers from different immigrant groups would get
together to compete and show off their best moves. As the
dances fused, a new American style of dancing emerged.
Tap flourished in the U.S. from 1900 to 1955, when it was
the main performance dance of Vaudeville and Broadway.
Vaudeville was the inexpensive entertainment before
television, and it employed droves of skilled tap dancers.
Many big bands included tap dances as part of their show.
For a while, every city in the U.S. had amateur street tap
performers.
In the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, the best tap dancers
moved from Vaudeville to the movies and television.
In the 1950s, the style of entertainment changed. Jazz
music and tap dance declined, while rock and roll music
and the new jazz dance emerged. What is now called jazz
dance evolved out of tap dance, so both dances have many moves in common.
But, jazz evolved separately from tap to become a new form in its own right.
Tap Dance
Characteristics of tap dance
Tap dancers make frequent use of syncopation. Dances typically start on the
eighth beat, as an unexpected or pre-emptive “pick up” to the beginning of the
dance. Another aspect of tap dancing is improvisation (sometimes called “jazz
tap”), in which the dancer will make up the dance as he goes along. Improvisation
can either be done with music accompaniment requiring that the tap dancer
performs to the beat of the music or without musical accompaniment. Hoofers
are tap dancers who dance only with their legs, making a louder, more grounded
sound. Fred Astaire’s well know tap dancing style was largely influenced by
ballroom dancing, while Gene Kelley incorporated his extensive ballet training into
his tap dancing, thereby dancing with all the parts of the body.
Steps in Tap Dancing
The simplest step is the toe tap, using the ball of your foot to make a sound.
The same sound can come from the heel, although often it is not as loud or
pronounced. These steps can be combined to make a “cramp roll” which sounds
like a horse gallop. It is done by stepping on your right toe, then left, then placing
your right heel down, then the left or it is started with the left toe. By slightly
jumping into the step and doing it continually, the proper sound is made.
Another simple step in tap dancing is the shuffle. Standing on one leg, the other
leg is brushed out by sliding the toe of the shoe against the floor, then brushed
back in. Making the step faster must be done by making smaller movements that
are closer to the body.
Interesting Fact:
As a youngster,
Bamuthi appeared
in the Tony Awardwinning Tap Dance
Kid, understudying
Savion Glover
in the Broadway
production and
then playing the
lead role, alongside
Harold Nichols,
during its national
tour.
The final simple tap step is the flap. This is like the shuffle, but instead of
brushing the toe back, the toe steps, i.e. brush-step. Both the shuffle and the flap
make two sounds. By combining the tap/heel, the shuffle, and the flap, many
other tap steps can be produced.
Famous tap dancers
Fred Astaire
John Bubbles (born John William Sublett)
Sammy Davis, Jr.
Vera Ellen
Savion Glover
Gregory Hines of Hines, Hines and Dad
Master Juba (William Henry Lane) of Five Points
Ruby Keeler
Gene Kelly
Ann Miller
Fayard Nicholas of The Nicholas Brothers
Harold Nicholas of The Nicholas Brothers
Eleanor Powell
Bill Robinson (aka Bojangles)
Howard “Sandman” Sims
Jimmy Slyde
Tap Greats
Savion Glover
Savion Glover is a world-renowned American tap-dancer. An inveterate drummer
on domestic implements from a young age, he began dance classes at the
Broadway Dance Center at the age of seven. When he was 12 he appeared in
the show The Tap Dance Kid, and in 1988 he was in the show Black and Blue in
Paris. From 1991 to 1995 he was regularly featured on PBS television in Sesame
Street. His adult career took off when he co-starred with his mentor Gregory Hines
in Jelly’s Last Jam (1992). In 1996–7 he had his own Broadway show, Bring in ’da
Noise, bring in ’da Funk. Another show, Savion Glover/Downtown, played in New
York at the Variety Arts Theater (1998–9), after which he toured in Foot Notes
(1999–2000); the latter also featured Jimmy Slyde, one of Glover’s mentors and
the subject of a tribute segment of Bring in ’da Noise, bring in ’da Funk. Glover,
who works with jazz accompaniments and adapts jazz tap styles to later AfricanAmerican idioms, is widely considered to have revivified tap-dancing for a new
generation.
Fred Astaire
The son of an Austrian immigrant, Fred Astaire entered show business at age five.
He was successful both in vaudeville and on Broadway in partnership with his
sister, Adele. After Adele retired to marry in 1932, Astaire headed to Hollywood.
Signed to RKO, he was loaned to MGM to appear in Dancing Lady (1933) before
starting work on RKO’s Flying Down to Rio (1933). In the latter film he began his
highly successful partnership with Ginger Rogers, with whom he danced in nine
RKO pictures. During these years he was also active in recording and radio. On
film, Astaire later appeared opposite a number of partners through various studios.
After a temporary retirement in 1945-7, during which he opened Fred Astaire
Dance Studios, Astaire returned to film to star in more musicals through 1957. He
subsequently performed a number of straight dramatic roles in film and TV.
Harold Nicholas
Harold Nicholas, the younger half of the world famous Nicholas Brothers dance
team, is known as one of the world’s greatest dancers. He and his brother Fayard
were established superstars at Twentieth Century Fox with their astounding dance
numbers in the studios musicals features. Harold was known for “attributing
spice to Fayard’s grace,” with his quick moves and matchless spunk. Harold was
a seasoned pro at age seven, appearing in everything from early 1930s Warner
Bros. Vitaphone shorts with the great Eubie Blake, to receiving the prestigious
Kennedy Center Honor in Washington in 1991. Carnegie Hall sold out for a tribute
to he and his brother in 1998, who were both present that special night. Though
he always made his astounding mid-air splits and backwards somersaults seem
effortless, Nicholas was much more than a “specialty act” for 1940s Fox films. He
was an incredible “dancer,” one you could watch and never tire of. The man had a
something no other dancer had. Always with a smile on his face, his special charm
and style gave him that extra something no other dancer had.
Bamuthi’s
Influences
Poltical activist and writer, Amiri Baraka, has something to say...
Afrika Baambaata
Visit UMS Online
“one of the godfathers of hip-hop”
- Marc Bamuthi Joseph
Musical visionary, DJ extraordinaire,
and founder of the Zulu Nation,
Afrika Bambaataa has done more
for the culture and music of hiphop than most could dream of. He
grew up in the South Bronx, and
began promoting and spinning
at block parties in the 1970s.
His first professional effort was
producing Soul Sonic Force’s debut
Zulu Nation Throwdown in 1980;
two years later, they released the
groundbreaking single “Planet Rock,”
helping to pioneer the Electro-Funk
movement with its freaky beats
and incorporation of sounds from
German synth band Kraftwerk.
Bambaataa’s futuristic soundscapes
took listeners by surprise, becoming
a major influence in the development
of not only hip-hop, but Techno and
House music as well. Throughout
his lengthy career, Bam has recorded
with a diverse multitude of talented artists, including James Brown, Bill Laswell,
Sly and Robbie, and Professor X. Still extremely active in the hip-hop community,
he continues to record, tour and educate, maintaining his status as a living legend
and forefather of the art.
Bambaataa Selected Discography:
Zulu Groove
(2004)
Dark Matter: Moving at the Speed of Light
(2004)
Presents Eastside
(2003)
Looking For The Perfect Beat 1980-1985
(2001)
Electro Funk Breakdown
(2001)
12” Mixes
(1994)
The Decade Of Darkness: 1990-2000
(1991)
Ntozake Shange
“her understanding about how the body moves into text and how the body
can be read as text is something that obviously informs my work and the
intergration of text and movement” - Marc Bamuthi Joseph
Ntozake Shange was born Paulette Williams in
New Jersey, 1948. In 1971 she changed her name
to Ntozake Shange. Her family were upper middle
class African Americans who regularly entertained
house guests such as Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis,
Chuck Berry, and W. E. B. Du Bois. In 1966 Shange
enrolled at Barnard College and separated from her
husband, a law student. She attempted suicide several
times. Nonetheless, she graduated cum laude and
later earned a master’s degree from the University of
Southern California in 1973.
While living and teaching in California, Shange began to associate with poets,
teachers, performers, and Black and White feminist writers who nurtured her
talents. Shange and her friends began to perform their poetry, music, and dance
in and around the San Francisco Area. Shange also danced with Halifu Osumare’s
company. Upon leaving the company she began collaborating with Paula Moss
on the poetry, music, and dance that would become for colored girls, her most
critically-acclaimed work in which seven Black women dressed in different colors
set various aspects of their lives to poetry, music, and dance. Moss and Shange
left California for New York and performed for colored girls in Soho and Producer
Woodie King Jr. saw one of these shows
and helped director Oz Scott stage the
choreopoem off-Broadway and continue
a sustantial theater run. In addition to her
plays, she has written poetry, novels, and
essays, and has taught at California State
College, the City College of New York,
University of Houston, Rice University, Yale,
Howard, and New York University. Among
her many awards are an Obie, a Los
Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry, and a
Pushcart Prize.
The name
Ntozake Shange
means “she who
comes with her
own things” and
“she who walks
like a lion” in
Xhosa, the Zulu
language.
Selected Works:
for colored girls who have considered
suicide/when the rainbow is enuf
(1976)
Sassafras, Cypress, and Indigo
(1982)
Amiri Baraka
“You can’t be a young Black poet in 2005 and not turn to or reference Amiri
Baraka in some way shape or form” - Marc Bamuthi Joseph
A poet, writer, political activist and teacher, Amiri Baraka is one of the nation’s
most influential and prolific African American artists. A vanguard in the Black arts
movement, he has published numerous volumes of poetry, fiction, non-fiction,
drama, and anthologies. Over the last five decades, he has also edited several
important literary magazines and journals.
His most recent books include Eulogies, a collection of eulogies he has give over
the past 20 years, Why’s/Wise, an anthology of poetry, and Jesse Jackson and
Black People, a book of essays about Jackson and the African American people’s
struggle for democracy and self-determination. His classic study of African
American self-determination, The Black Nation, was also recently reprinted.
Baraka is co-director, with his wife Amina Baraka, of Kimako’s Blues People,
an arts space in Newark. In May 2002, he was appointed as Poet Laureate of
the state of New Jersey for a two-year term. He has also been honored with
numerous other literary prizes and honors including fellowships from the
Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, the PEN/
Faulkner Award, and the Rockefeller Foundation Award for Drama.
Selected Works:
Dutchman
(1964)
Black Magic
(1967)
Slave Ship
(1967)
Hard Facts
(1976)
Poetry for the Advanced
(1979)
Daggers and Javelins
(1984)
The Autobiography of LeRoi Jones
(1984)
Sonia Sanchez
“I was first moved into poetry by the work of Sonia Sanchez…I found a lyricism
that I could relate to…that made me fall in love with language.” - Marc Bamuthi
Joseph
Sonia Sanchez was born on Sept. 9, 1934, in Birmingham, Alabama, and she
moved to Harlem with her family at the age of nine.. In the 1960s Sanchez was
introduced to the political activism of the times and published poetry in such
journals as The Liberator, the Journal of Black Poetry, Black Dialogue, and Negro
Digest. Her first book, Homecoming (1969), contained considerable invective
against “White America” and “White violence”; thereafter she continued to write
on what she called the “neoslavery” of Blacks, socially and psychologically unfree.
She also wrote about sexism, child abuse, and generational and class conflicts.
A good deal of Sanchez’ verse is written in American Black speech patterns,
eschewing formal English grammar and pronunciations.
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Over the years Sanchez joined other activists in promoting Black studies in schools,
in agitating for the rights of African countries, and in sponsoring various other
causes, such as that of the Nicaraguan Sandinistas. From 1966 she taught in
various universities, finally assuming a permanent post as
resident poet and member of the English faculty at Temple
University (Philadelphia) in 1975. Later works include
homegirls & handgrenades (1984), winner of an American
Book Award, and Under a Soprano Sky (1986).
Selection Works:
Does Your House Have Lions?
(1998)
Homegirls & Handgrenades
(1997)
I’ve Been a Woman
(1987)
Like the Singing Coming Off the Drums: Love Poems
(1998)
Shake Loose My Skin
(1999)
A Sound Investment
(1993)
Under a Soprano Sky
(1987)
Wounded in the House of a Friend
(1997)
Lesson
Plans
Student busily working during a UMS in-school visit.
Curriculum Connections
Introduction
The following activities are intended to be used in preparation for the UMS Youth
Performance. These activities are meant to be fun and educational, and should be
used to create anticipation for the performance.
Lesson Plans
Lesson plans that will help enrich your study of spoken word and extend the experience past the stage into the classroom will be put online in the coming days. We
hope that this new online format will make it easier for teachers to adapt the lessons. The plans can be accessed at www.ums.org/education.
Learner Outcomes
•
Each student will develop a feeling of self-worth, pride in work, respect,
appreciation and understanding of other people and cultures, and a desire
for learning now and in the future in a multicultural, gender-fair, and abilitysensitive environment.
•
Each student will develop appropriately to that individual’s potential, skill
in reading, writing, mathematics, speaking, listening, problem solving, and
examining and utilizing information using multicultural, gender-fair and
ability-sensitive materials.
•
Each student will become literate through the acquisition and use of
knowledge appropriate to that individual’s potential,
through a comprehensive, coordinated curriculum, including
computer literacy in a multicultural, gender-fair, and ability-sensitive
environment.
Are you interested
in lesson plans?
Visit the Kennedy
Center’s ArtsEdge
web site, the
nation’s most
comprehensive
source of artsbased lesson
plans.
www.artsedge.
kennedy-center.
org
ARTS EDUCATION
UMS can help you
meet Michigan’s
Curricular
Standards!
The activities in this
study guide,
combined with the
live performance, are
aligned with Michigan
Standards and
Benchmarks.
For a complete list of
Standards and
Benchmarks, visit the
Michigan Department
of Education online:
www.michigan.gov/
mde
Standard 1: Performing All students will apply skills and knowledge to perform in the arts.
Standard 2: Creating All students will apply skills and knowledge to create in the arts.
Standard 3: Analyzing in Context All students will analyze, describe, and evaluate works of art.
Standard 4: Arts in Context All students will understand, analyze and describe the arts in their
historical, social, and cultural contexts.
Standard 5: Connecting to other Arts, other Disciplines, and Life All students will recognize,
analyze and describe connections among the arts; between the arts and other disciplines;
between the arts and everyday life.
ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS
Standard 3: Meaning and Communication All students will focus on meaning and communication as they listen, speak, view, read, and write in personal, social, occupational, and civic
contexts.
Standard 6: Voice All students will learn to communicate information accurately and effectively
and demonstrate their expressive abilities by creating oral, written and visual texts that
enlighten and engage an audience.
SOCIAL STUDIES
Standard I-1: Time and Chronology All students will sequence chronologically eras of American
history and key events within these eras in order to examine relationships and to explain
cause and effect.
Standard I-3: Analyzing and Interpreting the Past All students will reconstruct the past by
comparing interpretations written by others from a variety of perspectives and creating
narratives from evidence.
Standard II-1: People, Places, and Cultures All students will describe, compare and explain the
locations and characteristics of places, cultures and settlements.
Standard VII-1: Responsible Personal Conduct All students will consider the effects of an
individual’s actions on other people, how one acts in accordance with the rule of law and
how one acts in a virtuous and ethically responsible way as a member of society.
MATH
Standard I-1: Patterns Students recognize similarities and generalize patterns, use patterns to
create models and make predictions, describe the nature of patterns and relationships and
construct representations of mathematical relationships.
Standard I-2: Variability and Change Students describe the relationships among variables, predict
what will happen to one variable as another variable is changed, analyze natural variation
and sources of variability and compare patterns of change.
Standard III-3: Inference and Prediction Students draw defensible inferences about unknown
outcomes, make predictions and identify the degree of confidence they have in their
predictions.
SCIENCE
Standard I-1: Constructing New Scientific Knowledge All students will ask questions that help
them learn about the world; design and conduct investigations using appropriate
methodology and technology; learn from books and other sources of information;
communicate their findings using appropriate technology; and reconstruct previously
learned knowledge.
Standard IV-4: Waves and Vibrations All students will describe sounds and sound waves; explain
shadows, color, and other light phenomena; measure and describe vibrations and waves;
and explain how waves and vibrations transfer energy.
CAREER & EMPLOYABILITY
Standard 1: Applied Academic Skills All students will apply basic communication skills, apply
scientific and social studies concepts, perform mathematical processes and apply
technology in work-related situations.
Standard 2: Career Planning All students will acquire, organize, interpret and evaluate information from career awareness and exploration activities, career assessment and work-based
experiences to identify and to pursue their career goals.
Standard 3: Developing and Presenting Information All students will demonstrate the ability to
combine ideas or information in new ways, make connections between seemingly unrelated
ideas and organize and present information in formats such as symbols, pictures, schemat
ics, charts, and graphs.
Standard 4: Problem Solving All students will make decisions and solve problems by specifying
goals, identifying resources and constraints, generating alternatives, considering impacts,
choosing appropriate alternatives, implementing plans of action and evaluating results.
Standard 5: Personal Management All students will display personal qualities such as
responsibility, self-management, self-confidence, ethical behavior and respect for self and
others.
Standard 7: Teamwork All students will work cooperatively with people of diverse backgrounds
and abilities, identify with the group’s goals and values, learn to exercise leadership, teach
others new skills, serve clients or customers and contribute to a group process with ideas,
suggestions and efforts.
Each UMS lesson
plan is aligned to
speciﬁc State of
Michigan
Standards.
TECHNOLOGY
Standard 2: Using Information Technologies All students will use technologies to input, retrieve,
organize, manipulate, evaluate and communicate information.
Standard 3: Applying Appropriate Technologies All students will apply appropriate technologies
to critical thinking, creative expression and decision-making skills.
WORLD LANGUAGES
Standard 2: Using Strategies All students will use a varietry of strategies to communicate in a nonEnglish language.
Standard 8: Global Community All students will define and characterize the global community.
Standard 9: Diversity All students will identify diverse languages and cultures throughout the
world.
B’boying
Short for break-boys, these men (and women!) listen and wait for the
“break” in music. Once they hear it, it inspires them to break into dance
and perform their best moves. This is where the term “breakdancing”
comes from.
B’Boying
Beat-Boxing
Percussive and rhythmic sounds produced with the mouth without using
any words. Often popping lips, humming, hisses, and other vocalizations
are employed.
Boogaloo
A style based on movements of the pelvis. The boogaloo is a rather “old school” move with jerky
movements and rhythm.
Choreopoem
A piece of work that is written as a poem but is intended to be acted out on stage.
Disco
A nightclub for dancing; also a style of music generally heard in nightclubs of the 1970s
characterized by strong rhythmic pulses, repetitive lyrics, and synthesized/electronic sounds.
Discourse
A conversation or an extended expression of a thought through speech or writing.
DJ
Disc jockey; a person who announces and plays popular recorded music.
Dramaturg
One who specializes dramaturgy, that is the writing and
staging of dramas.
Graffiti
Unauthorized writing or drawing on property; also hip-hop
visual art.
Griot
Any of a class of musician-entertainers of western Africa
whose performances include tribal histories and genealogies.
Hip-hop theater
Theater that encompasses each of the four elements of hiphop: music, dance, word rhyme, visual art
Jazz
An American-born style of music characterized by free forms and high improvisation.
Graffiti
Locking
A movement that creates the illusion that a dancer’s joints are stuck, almost like a freeze frame in
a movie. Introduced in 1968, it was the first kind of hip-hop dance.
MC (emcee)
Master of Ceremonies, Microphone Controller, Mic Checka; this can be a rapper or, at a party, the
only person allowed to use the mic.
Monologue or Monolog
In drama, a long conversation dominated by one actor or person.
Narrative
A story, something that is told, either fictional or non-fictional.
New York Boroughs
The five political divisions of New York City, i.e. Queens, The
Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Staten Island.
Perspective
Point of view
Playwright
A writer of plays
Map of NYC Boroughs
Poet Laureate
An honor conferred up a poet in which they are officially appointed as a poet by a government
and are expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events.
Poetry
Writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen
and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound, and rhythm.
Popping
Accenting the movement of each joint in a sharp way.
Prose
The ordinary language people use in speaking or writing.
Rap
A vocal style of music associated with hip-hop in which words are spoken or “rapped” to a regular
beat or to music with rhyme throughout.
Slam
A spoken word or poetry competition or event.
Spoken word
Poetry that is specifically meant to be spoken or heard.
Stanza
Groups of lines that divide a poem into sections; similar
the paragraphs in prose.
Theater/Theatre
A building for dramatic productions; also dramatic literature
and its performance. While the two spellings are
interchangeable, “theatre” is the British spelling and is
often used to describe the idea and “theater” to describe
the physical space.
Vaudeville
A genre of staged entertainment,
popular in the early 20th century, that
highlights a variety of theatrical acts,
including singing, dancing, comedy, etc.
Verse
Metrical writing; a line of poetry.
Vignette
A short, descriptive scene or literary
sketch.
The world-famous Apollo Theater in Harlem
Bamuthi Vocabulary Word-o
FREE
SPACE
Before the game begins, fill in each box with one of the vocabulary words or phrases below. Your
teacher will call out the definition for one of the words below. If you’ve got the matching word
on your board, cover the space with your chip. When you’ve got a horizontal, vertical, or
diagonal row of five chips, call out WORD-O!
Audience
Brooklyn
Poetry
Graffiti
Playwright
Bamuthi
Hip-Hop
Stanza
Griot
Narrative
Flesh
Rap
Verse
Slam
Queens
Prose
Theater
Laureate
Popping
Bronx
Tap
Choreopoem
Disco
Locking
Vaudville
Bamuthi Word Search
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All of the words from the left column can be found in the puzzle. These words
relate to the Marc Bamuthi Joseph Performance of Word Becomes Flesh and Teacher
Resource Guide. Look in all directions for the words!
Bamuthi
Flesh
Prose
Tap
Brooklyn
HipHop
Rap
Theater
Choreopoem
Poetry
Stanza
Word Search Solution
Here are the answers to the word search:
Bamuthi
Flesh
Prose
Tap
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Resources
UMS FIELD TRIP PERMISSION Title
SLIP
Dear Parents and Guardians,
We will be taking a field trip to see a University Musical Society (UMS) Youth Performance of the Marc
Bamuthi Joseph’s Word Becomes Flesh on Friday, March 10, from 12noon-1:15pm at the Power Center
in Ann Arbor.
We will travel (please circle one) • by car
• by school bus
• by private bus
• by foot
Leaving school at approximately ________am and returning at approximately ________pm.
The UMS Youth Performance Series brings the world’s finest performers in music, dance, theater,
opera, and world cultures to Ann Arbor. This performance features spoken word artist, Marc Bamuthi
Joseph.
We (circle one)
• need
• do not need
additional chaperones for this event. (See below to sign up as a chaperone.)
Please (circle one)
• send
• do not send
lunch along with your child on this day.
If your child requires medication to be taken while we are on the trip, please contact us to make
arrangements.
If you would like more information about this Youth Performance, please visit the Education section of
www.ums.org/education. Copies of the Teacher Resource Guide for this performance are available for
you to download.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to call me at ___________________________________
or send email to _________________________________________________________________________.
Please return this form to the teacher no later than ________________.___________________________
Sincerely,
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - My son/daughter, __________________________________, has permission to attend the UMS Youth
Performance on Friday, March 10, 2006. I understand that transportation will be by _____________.
I am interested in chaperoning if needed (circle one).
• YES
• NO
Parent/Guardian Signature________________________________________ Date___________________
Relationship to student ____________________________________________
Daytime phone number__________________________________________
Emergency contact person________________________________________
Emergency contact phone number_________________________________
Bibliography
Visit UMS Online
“About Actor Ntozake Shange,” available from http://www.broadwayarchive.
com/bio_detail.asp?name=462; accessed 2 December 2005.
“Afrika Baambaata,” Rolling Stone; available from http://www.rollingstone.com/
artist/bio/_/id/3786; accessed 2 December 2005.
“Amiri Baraka: A Vanguard in the Black Arts Movement,” Speak Out!;
available from http://www.speakersandartists.org/People/AmiriBaraka.html;
accessed 2 December 2005.
“Billy Collins,” Steven Barclay Agency: Lectures & Readings; available from http://
www.barclayagency.com/collins.html; accessed 2 December 2005.
Boran, Pat. The Portable Creative Writing Workshop. Clare, Ireland: Salmon
Publishing, 1999.
Brooks, Gwendolyn, Keorapetse Kgositsile, Haki Madhubuti, and Dudley Randall.
A Capsule Course in Black Poetry Writing. Detroit, MI: Broadside Press,
1975.
Collins, Billy. “Poems on the page, poems in the air.” In The Spoken Word
Revolution: slam, hip-hop and the poetry of a new generation, ed. Eleveld,
Mark. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks MediaFusion, 2003.
Elam, Harry, Jr. “Revising the Past, Pushing into the Future.” American Theatre
21 (April 2004): 28.
“Fred Astaire,” IMBd; available from http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000001/
bio; accessed 2 December 2005.
Fricke, Jim and Charlie Ahearn. Yes, yes y’all. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press,
2002.
“Funk Styles’ History and Knowledge,” Electric Boogaloos; available from http://
electricboogaloos.com/knowledge.html; accessed 2 December 2005.
Gener, Randy. “Bling, or Revolution: a rountable discussion.” American Theatre
21 (July/August 2004): 43-44, 91-93.
“Gil Scott-Heron,” BBC; available from http://www0.bbc.co.uk/cgi-perl/music/
muze/index.pl?site=music&action=biography&artist_id=26876; accessed 2
December 2005.
“Glossary of Poetic Devices,” available from http://www.kyrene.k12.az.us/schools/
brisas/sunda/poets/poetry2.htm; accessed 2 December 2005.
“Gwendolyn Brooks,” Notable Chicago African Americans; available from http://
www.chipublib.org/001hwlc/gisnotableafam.html; accessed 2 December
2005.
“Haiti,” available from http://travel-island.com/interesting2places/haiti.html#;
Bibliography
“Harold Nicholas,” IMBd; available from http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0629389/
bio; accessed 2 December 2005.
“Hip-Hop Theater”. Forum with Michael Krasny. Interview with Marc Bamuthi
Joseph and others. KQED. May 19, 2005.
Hoch, Danny. “here we go, Yo…” American Theatre 21 (December 2004): 3840, 70-74.
Joseph, Marc Bamuthi. SparkEd Educator Guide. KQED, 2005.
“Locking and Popping (Electric Boogie),” Dancer’s Delight; available from http://
www.msu.edu/user/okumurak/styles/pop.html; accessed 2 December
2005.
There are more
study guides
like this one, on
a variety of
topics online!
Just visit...
www.ums.org/
education
“Marc Bamuthi Joseph: The power of his words,” 2003 Spoken Word Goldie
Award; available from www.sfbg.com/goldies03/spoken_word.html;
“Marc Bamuthi Joseph Artist Statement,” available from http://www.lapena.org/
nexgen/bamuthi.html; accessed 2 December 2005.
“Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Slam, Tap and Rap: Oral and Dance Traditions,” available
from http://www.speakoutnow.org/People/MarcBamuthiJoseph.html;
“Marc Kelly Smith,” available from http://www.slampapi.com/new_site/bio.htm;
Perabo, Susan. Writers in the Schools: A Guide to Teaching Creative Writing in the
Classroom. Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas Press, 1998.
“Poetic Devices,” available from home.att.net/~teaching/langarts/poeticdev.pdf;
“Poetry Slam Incorporate FAQ,” available from http://www.poetryslam.com/mod
ules.php?name=FAQ&myfaq=yes&id_cat=1&categories=Poetry+Slam+Inc.
#2; accessed 2 December 2005.
“Savion Glover,” Grove Music Online; available from http://www.grovemusic.com/
shared/views/article.html?from=search&session_search_id=24530736&hitn
um=5&section=jazz.577000; accessed 2 December 2005.
“Sonia Sanchez: Biography,” bonvibre’s Phat African American Poetry Book;
available from http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/poetry/sanchez_sonja.
html#bio/biblio; accessed 2 December 2005.
“Speaking English.” To the Best of Our Knowledge. Interview of Marc Bamuthi
Joseph and Paul Flores. Wisconsin Public Radio. April 1, 2004
Bibliography
Visit UMS Online
“Spoken Word”. Forum with Michael Krasny. Interview with various speakers.
KQED. April 17, 2002.
“Tap Dance,” available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tap_(dance); accessed 2
December 2005.
Uno, Roberta. “The 5th Element.” American Theatre 21 (April 2004): 26-30, 8586.
“Word Becomes Flesh’: an interview with Marc Bamuthi Joseph,” Wanda’s picks;
available from http://www.sfbayview.com/111903/wandaspicks111903.
shtml; accessed 2 December 2005.
“Works by Amiri Baraka,” available from http://www.answers.com/topic/amiribaraka; accessed 2 December 2005.
“Works by Ntozake Shange,” available from http://www.answers.com/topic/
ntozake-shange; accessed 2 December 2005.
“Youth Speaks Mission Statement,” available from http://www.youthspeaks.org/
aboutys/mission.html; accessed 2 December 2005.
Title
Internet Resources
Arts Resources
The official website of UMS. Visit the Education section (www.ums.org/education)
for study guides, information about community and family events and more
information about the UMS Youth Education Program.
www.artsedge.kennedy-center.org
The nation’s most comprehensive web site for arts education, including lesson
plans, arts education news, grant information, etc.
Bamuthi, Hip-Hop, Spoken Word, and Poetry
www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4662119
NPR Interview (Marc Bamuthi Joseph). Bamuthi discusses his background, work,
and experiences in theater, poetry, and life.
www.hbo.com/defpoetry/
HBO’s Def Poetry Jam was created and produced by hip-hop mogul Russell
Simmons. It features a variety of artists performing spoken word poetry. Bamuthi
is featured in an episode as well.
PLEASE NOTE:
Although UMS
previewed each web
site, we recommend
that teachers check
all web sites before
introducing them to
students, as content
may have changed
since this guide was
published.
www.poetryslam.com
Poetry Slam, Inc. oversees and unites the competitive slam community and this site
provides one with an array of info about the art form.
http://a2slam.com
Homepage for the Ann Arbor Poetry Slam, a local community of slam poetry
enthusiasts.
http://slamchannel.com
Slam Channel…an interesting site about slam poetry and anything else related.
www.poets.org
The Academy of American Poets
www.writenet.org
WriteNet is an interactive website created to increase and enhance the reading
habits, Internet usage, and civic engagement of urban high school students.
www.hiphopreader.com
This site promotes literacy in and to the hip-hop community through
recommended reading lists, forums, study guides, and other helpful links and
materials.
www.urbanwordnyc.org
Urban Word is an organization that provides thousands of New York City
teenagers with free, safe, ongoing, and uncensored writing and performance
opportunities. The site contains many performance, poetry, and community
resources for its teens and site visitors.
Recommended
Reading
Title
Angelsey, Zoe. Listen UP! New York: One World/Ballantine, 1999.
These are
Bamuthi’s
recommendations
for reading about
poetry and spoken
word as listed
in his Sparked
Educator Guide...
Bonair-Agard, Roger, et al. Burning Down the House: Selected Poems from the
Nuyorican Poets Cafe’s National Poetry Slam Champions. Brooklyn, NY: Soft
Skull Press, 2000.
Eleveld, Mark, ed. The Spoken Word Revolution: Slam, Hip-Hop & the Poetry of
a New Generation. New York: Sourcebooks Trade, 2003.
Fricke, Jim. Yes yes Y’all: The Experience Music Project Oral History of Hip-Hop’s
First Decade. DCapo Press, 2002.
George, Nelson. Hip Hop America. Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2000.
Glazner, Gary Mex, ed. Poetry Slam: The Competitive Art of Performance Poetry.
San Francisco: Manic D Press, 2000.
Lommel, Cookie. History of Rap Music. Chelsea House Publishers. Macdougall,
Alan S. and Barbara G. Dan. New York: Eden Press, 2000.
Reed, Ishmael, ed. From Totems to Hip-Hop: A Multicultural Anthology of Poetry
Across the Americas, 1900-2002. New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2002.
Reyes Rivera, Louis and Tony Medina, eds. Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam.
New York: Three Rivers Press, 2001.
Stratton, Richard and Kim Wozencraft, eds. Slam. New York: Grove Press, 1998.
Swados, Elizabeth. Hey You! C’Mere: A Poetry Slam. New York: Art Asylum,
2002.
Titus, Andrew, ed. Poetry Slam: Speaking Poetry, the Alien Language of Choice.
Frederickton, NB: Broken Jaw Press, 1999.
Von Ziegesar, Cecily, ed. Slam. New York: Penguin Books, 2000.
Recommended Recordings
The Caedmon Poetry Collection: A Century Of Poets Reading Their Own
Work
Three CDs on which you can hear most of the great (mostly male / almost
exclusively white) poets of the 20th century reading their own poems: Yeats,
Auden, Williams, Thomas, Eliot, Frost, Neruda, Plath...
(Harper Audio, 2000)
Good Poems, by Garrison Keillor
Selected by Keillor from the poems read every day on The Writer’s Almanac,
his 7 am NPR radio show, Good Poems is just that -- a collection of good
poems poets old & new, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Robert Frost,
Howard
Nemerov, Charles Bukowski, Donald Hall, Billy Collins,
Robert Bly, Sharon Olds
(Highbridge Audio, 2002)
Visit UMS Online
Hip-Hop Meditations
Oakland based artist Carlos Mena creates an interesting and powerful HipHop
album with positive messages and a great groove.
(Casamena, 2003)
Multiplication Hip Hop
It’s Elementary
Science and Geography
These three CDs are educational tools that combine subjects like the alphabet
song, the multiplication tables, science, and geography with hip-hop beats.
They are the new generation’s answer to the School House Rock short
animations of the 1970s.
(De-U Records, 2002)
Our Souls Have Grown Deep Like The Rivers: Black Poets Read Their Work
The different styles included constitute a vast verbal journey that takes the
listener from the traditions established by W.E.B. DuBois to the more
progressive turns of rap visionaries Public Enemy. Langston Hughes,
Gwendolyn
Brooks, and Maya Angelou orate with resounding clarity;
Nikki Giovanni, Nobel
laureate Wole Soyinka, and U.S. poet laureate Rita
Dove lend rich
nuance and textured dialect to their beautifully
worded lines; and tracks from
Amiri Baraka, Ntozake Shange, Gil ScottHeron, and the Last Poets create a
context for the performance poetry
of contemporary “spoken word” artists.
(Rhino records, 2000)
Seeking
A recording project of Marc Bamuthi Joseph performing his own spoken word
poetry. Released in October 2001.
Spoken Word Revolution
The book Spoken Word Revolution edited by Mark Eleveld, has a companion
CD that includes a deep range of spoken word tracks, as well as some
commentary from featured artists.
(Sourcebooks Trade, 2003)
Videos of Interest
Beat Street
Starring: Rae Dawn Chong, Kadeem Hardison, John Chardiet, Guy Davis,
Kool Moe Dee
Studio: MGM
Release Date: June 8, 1984
Rating: PG
Run Time: 106 minutes
Synopsis: The troubles of ghetto life are accurately captured in this cinematic
time capsule, one of the first films to contain rap music. At the time, the rapping
took a back seat to the break dancing and
one of the many attributes of Beat Street is
the authentic street moves on display. The
locations also retain their street cred, with
graffiti covering subway cars and abandoned
buildings populating the mean streets. The
story concerns a group of Bronx teens using
their dancing, rapping, and artistic skills to lift
themselves out of the ghetto. Musician Harry
Belafonte teamed with David Picker to produce.
A New Times Critic said of the film when it
opened in 1984, “Beat Street is designed for
everybody who still hasn’t had his or her fill of
break dancing, or who doesn’t yet understand
that break dancing, rap singing and graffiti
are legitimate expressions of the urban artistic
impulse.”
Word Becomes Flesh
Starring: Marc Bamuthi Joseph
Publisher: CustomFlix
Rating: Not rated
Run Time: 90 minutes
Synopsis: This is a DVD video of Marc Bamuthi Joseph’s evening length
choreopoem, Word Becomes Flesh. The production fully showcases the unique
crossroads of searing politics, theology, poetry, photography and endless
avenues of Black dance, including Tap, Modern, Hip Hop Movement and West
African Dance.
Community Resources
Title
University Musical Society
University of Michigan
Burton Memorial Tower
881 N. University Ave
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1101
734.615.0122
[email protected]
Neutral Zone
(VOLUME Youth Poetry Project)
637 S Main St
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
734.214.9995
www.neutral-zone.org
Shrine of the Black Madonna Cultural Center & Bookstore
13535 Livernois Ave
Detroit, MI 48238
313.491.0777
The Heidelberg Restaurant
215 N Main St
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
734.663.7758
InsideOut Literary Arts Project
2111 Woodward Ave
Suite 1010
Detroit, MI 48201
313.965.5332
www.insideoutdetroit.org
Ozone House
30 N Huron
Ypsilanti, MI 48198
734.485.2222
www.ozonehouse.org
Ann Arbor Poetry Slam
[email protected]
www.a2slam.com
Ann Arbor District Library - www.aadl.org
Detroit Public Library - www.detroit.lib.mi.us
Ypslianti Public LIbrary - www.ypsilibrary.org
Saline District Library - www.saline.lib.mi.us
Chelsea District Library - www.chelsea.lib.mi.us
Using the Resource Media
The VHS accompanying this Resource Guide includes scenes from Word Becomes
Flesh as detailed below. This Resource VHS is for educational purposes only and
should not be duplicated. Thank you.
Watching the VHS
The 30 minute VHS is divided into three large sections: Word Becomes Flesh
Trailer, Spark - Program Info, Exerpt of Word Becomes Flesh
Section 1: Word Becomes Flesh Trailer
Couter - 00:00:00
This is a brief promo for Word Becomes Flesh, showing highlights audio and visual
highlights from the show featuring Bamuthi.
Section 2: Spark-Program Info
Counter - 00:00:30
This portion of the DVD is an interview of Bamuthi about the synthesis, development, and performance of Word Becomes Flesh, also including clips from the
show and brief interviews of relevant collaborators.
Section 3: Word Becomes Flesh (Excerpt)
Counter - 00:10:00
The DVD ends with an excerpt of a “work-in-progress” version of Word Becomes
Flesh, recorded at the Bates Festival.
Evening PerformanceTitle
Info
Word Becomes Flesh
Marc Bamuthi
Joseph
Friday, March 10, 8pm
Power Center
Especially well-known on
the spoken-word circuit,
Marc Bamuthi Joseph
makes his UMS debut
with the extraordinary hiphop theater piece Word
Becomes Flesh. Presented
as a series of performed
letters to his unborn son,
Word Becomes Flesh is a
highly personal creation that
documents nine months of
unplanned pregnancy from
the perspective of a young,
single father. Named “CuttingEdge Performer of the Year”
by the Seattle Times, Joseph
examines family relationships,
black male identity, and
fatherhood while reevaluating the link between spoken language and body
language —all accompanied by a hot, live music trio. “Word Becomes Flesh is at
its core a profoundly intimate work. It puts shameful thoughts, secret pleasures,
embarrassing truths, and all manner of human messiness under the spotlight, and
arranges the jumble into what feels like the most glorious of heroic adventures:
the journey by which the birth of a baby becomes the rebirth of a man…The
ruthless honesty of this account makes this 75-minute work feel like part of your
own soul when it’s over.” (Washington Post)
To purchase UMS
tickets:
Online
www.ums.org
By Phone
734.764.2538
TEEN Ticket
In response to the
needs of our teen
audience members,
the University
Musical Society has
implemented the TEEN
Ticket. All teens can
attend UMS events at
a significant discount.
Tickets are available
for $10 the day of the
performance at the
Michigan League Ticket
Office, or for 50% off
the published price at
the venue 90 minutes
before the performance
begins. One ticket per
student ID.
Send Us Your Feedback!
UMS wants to know what teachers and students think about this Youth Performance.
We hope you’ll send us your thoughts, drawings, letters or reviews.
UMS Youth Education Program
Burton Memorial Tower • 881 N. University Ave. • Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1011
734.615.0122 phone • 734.998.7526 fax • [email protected]

Marc Bamuthi Joseph - University Musical Society

Transcription

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