Artists & Projects Directory

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Marc Bamuthi Joseph/The Living Word Project

"a searing, satisfying evening." - The Washington Post, July 2011

First performed by Marc Bamuthi Joseph in 2003, Word Becomes Flesh returns to the stage, re-invented with an ensemble cast from a new generation. A series of performed letters to an unborn son, Word Becomes Flesh uses spoken word, dance and live music to document nine months of pregnancy from a young single father's perspective.

Incorporating elements of ritual, archetypes, and symbolic sites within the constructs of hip hop culture and presenting the complex contradictions of race, the ensemble cast of Word Becomes Flesh uses the stage as an open page, and deftly writes the body as text.

While women continue to fight for their right to make choices about their bodies, the legacies 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 choeographically examines the experience of fatherhood in the black community and, in the process, confronts the intersection of the physical reality and the mythology of the black male body from the cotton field to the athletic field and all spaces in between.

Written and Directed by Marc Bamuthi Joseph. Written and Performed by Dahlak Brathwaite, Daveed Diggs, Dion Decibels, Kahlil Anthony, Michael Turner and B.Yung.