Living Word – The CSPA

red, black and GREEN: a blues by Marc Bamuthi Joseph

red, black and GREEN: a blues (rbGb), is a full-length, multimedia theater work that lands at the intersection of green economics and black psychology, written by USA Rockefeller Fellow Marc Bamuthi Joseph. Through a collaboration with installation artist Theaster Gates (Whitney Biennial 2010), Joseph uses music, movement, poetry, and gallery performance to jumpstart a conversation about collective responsibility in a climactic era of climate change.

They are currently seeking resources to support a rehearsal residency at Theater Artaud in San Francisco that will produce the first 20 minutes of the piece. The full debut of rbGb is tentatively scheduled for June 2011 at REDCAT in Los Angeles with additional performances confirmed in Houston, San Francisco, Massachusetts, Chapel Hill, and New York through 2012.

red, black and GREEN: a blues uses performance to document the process of creating single day, eco-themed hip hop festivals in Black neighborhoods across the country. The festivals, called LIFE IS LIVING, are co-organized by Joseph’s Living Word Project and local partners with the specific intention of re-framing environmentalism in underused parks in underserved communities.

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Support the project here:

red, black and GREEN: a blues by Marc Bamuthi Joseph – Project Site – Where Great Art Starts – from United States Artists.

Marc Bamuthi Joseph/The Living Word Project | REDCAT

Marc Bamuthi Joseph is the Artistic Director of the Living Word Project. We at the CSPA are fans and are going to check out his show on Friday night at REDCAT. Â For those not in the know, the living word project takes the idea that sustainability is about supporting life and that supporting life is the most important thing in the world. Joseph’s Hip-Hop styled green movement is one of the most exciting things we’ve seen to date. The is a link for tickets at the end of this entry.Â

“Thunderous, expansive… Rarely do word and movement mesh so seamlessly and elegantly… [Bamuthi’s] stories put sound and gesture on a single continuum of expression.” The Washington Post

Deftly combining his trademark rapid-fire wordplay and poetic reveries with phenomenal physical movement, Marc Joseph Bamuthi leaves it all on stage in the break/s, his multimedia journey across Planet Hip-Hop. The former National Poetry Slam champion takes inspiration from Jeff Chang’s seminal account in Can’t Stop Won’t Stop and looks to his own personal narrative to play out a living history of the hip-hop generation. At turns self-deprecatingly funny and unsparingly frank, his dynamic, deeply felt stories track the rise of hip-hop from its homegrown local roots to a global cultural force–and the personal costs, chafing identity crises, and exacting racial and cultural expectations that came with this transformation. Directed by Michael John GarcÃ©s, the break/s: a mixtape for stage is performed by the magnetic Bamuthi in a percussive call-and-response format with turntablist DJ Excess and multi-instrumentalist Ajayi Jackson, accompanied by video by Eli Jacobs Fantauzzi.

via Marc Bamuthi Joseph/The Living Word Project | REDCAT.