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Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Presents Marc Bamuthi Joseph / The Living Word Project

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts presents Marc Bamuthi Joseph/ The Living Word Project: red, black & GREEN: a blues rbGb). October 20-22, 2011, 7:30 p.m./YBCA Forum.

YBCA presents the world premiere of Marc Bamuthi Joseph’s newest project, red, black & GREEN: a blues (rbGb), a collaborative, multimedia performance work designed as both a performance and an installation, combining poetic text, dance, music and film within a sculptural environment to examine environmental racism, social ecology and collective responsibility in an era of dramatic climate change. Red, black & GREEN: a blues is produced by MAPP International Productions.

YBCA has had a long and fertile association with Bay Area artist and director Marc Bamuthi Joseph whose artistic work reflects an evolving aesthetic that integrates spoken word with contemporary movement. Red, black & GREEN: a blues reunites five artists from his acclaimed work, the break/s: a mixtape for stage, including choreographer Stacey Printz, director Michael John Garcés, musician Tommy Shepherd, documentary filmmaker Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi, and media designer David Szlasa. Joseph is also joined onstage in the performance by dancer/actor Traci Tolmaire and vocalist/visual artist Theaster Gates, who is also designing the set.

The performance takes place in three distinct parts. The first part invites the viewer to interact with the performers and the set, encouraging them to move around the stage to view the action from a variety of viewpoints. The audience takes their seats for the second part, and then can come back down onto the set for the third and final part, where they are asked to meet and mingle with the performers and each other over drinks and conversation.

Set inside Gates’ malleable stage installation of repurposed building materials and artifacts from the Life is Living Festivals nationwide, and heightened by Jacobs-Fantauzzi’s vivid films, red, black & GREEN: a blues provides a vibrant opportunity to unite individuals, families and neighbors in asking, “What sustains life in OUR community?” Red, black, & GREEN: a blues is part of Bay Area Now 6, YBCA’s signature, triennial celebration of the works of Bay Area artists. www.ybca.org

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