(NORTH ADAMS, Mass.) – Word Becomes Flesh, a performance piece by director/choreographer Marc Bamuthi Joseph, featuring six poet/performers exploring the black male experience in America, takes place in the MCLA Church Street Center’s Eleanor Furst Roberts Auditorium on the MCLA campus on Saturday, October 5, 2013, at 7:30pm. The show – co-presented with Williams College – will be preceded by “Trayvon, Race and Being a Black Man in America,” a discussion at 6 p.m.
A fully staged production currently touring the United States, “Word Becomes Flesh” is played out through a series of performed letters to an unborn son, using spoken word, dance and live music to document nine months of pregnancy from a young, single father’s perspective.”
The play, described as “a fluid evening-length choreopoem written in the form of a narrative verse play,” integrates hip-hop and contemporary dance to deconstruct black male identity in the 21st century through the sharing of one man’s experience of fatherhood. Each member of the ensemble cast are MCs and spoken word artists who release music independently online and travel around the world with their own projects. However, they are very diverse; some have multiple Ivy League college degrees, others are high school dropouts.
As a result, Joseph explained, the show draws from this spectrum of experience – not only as African American men, but also as artists and actors, as they explore the idea that African American “male hood” is not a monolith.
Prior to the performance, all are invited to a free panel discussion featuring MCLA and Williams professors and students, as well as Berkshire residents. Entitled “Trayvon, Race and Being a Black Man in America,” the panel will explore issues facing African Americans in the Berkshires and beyond.
Tickets to “Word Becomes Flesh” are $10 for general admission. Tickets for MCLA and Williams alumni are $8, $5 for staff and faculty, and non-MCLA and non-Williams students. Tickets for members and MCLA and Williams students are free. Tickets may be reserved by calling MCLA Presents! at 413.662.5204. For more information, call 413.664.8718 or visit MCLA Presents.
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