Biography Bamuthi's MySpace page See a short video of Bamuthi We are very excited to bring international youth arts leader Marc Bamuthi Joseph to Syracuse for a one-night only performance at Syracuse Stage on June 25th, 2007 at 7:30 pm for an event that champions the impact of our local schools, artists and cultural organizations in the educational life our children.

Marc Bamuthi Joseph offers a stunning performance that blends spoken word, drama, dance, and his experiences as an arts educator. Through movement and poetic language, Bamuthi will draw you into the classroom experience, bringing the audience into the thoughts, responses, frustrations, and miracles of both students and teachers as they encounter the arts and how the arts influence lives. 

Bamuthi is artistic director for the Living Word Project and program director for Youth Speaks. Through the spoken word medium, he leads students through a process of examining their world and the issues that are important to them and turning their perspectives into meaningful expression. His mission to be an agent for social change fuels much of his work, taking him far beyond the need for recognition into the realm of spiritual and personal expression.

This performance is part of a celebration of CNY arts education partnerships and the Culture, Community and Education research project.

Biography
International Youth Arts Leader, Marc Bamuthi Joseph, is an arts activist currently living in Oakland, California. He is a choreographer, dancer, spoken word artist, and so much more. He is National Poetry Slam champion, Broadway veteran, featured artist on two seasons of Russell Simmons' Def Poetry on HBO, and a recipient of 2002 and 2004 National Performance Network Creation commissions.

He joined the legendary Katherine Dunham (before her death) in Santiago de Cuba as a part of the CubaNola Collective. He has 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” (The Houston Chronicle), to “ever-elegant” (The 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 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.

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.

He has done several performances with the current stars of the Spoken Word and music scene including: Ben Harper, De La Soul, The Roots, Bonnie Raitt, Saul Williams, Cody Chestnutt, Beau Sia, Blackalicious, Will Power, Jill Scott, Mos Def, Sarah Jones, Sonia Sanchez, Gil Scott Heron, The Last Poets, Amiri Baraka, Roger Bonair-Agard, Ishle Yi Park, Danny Hoch and many others. In addition, he's released a spoken word CD, Seeking, worked with Linkin Park's Joe Hahn for MTV, and performs on the CD 185 Progress Drive (Alternative Tentacles Records: 2000) with Assata Shakur, Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Bob Marley, Michael Franti, I was Born with Two Tongues and other hip hop and spoken word artists.