Scourge

Scourge offers a powerful, political and revolutionary look at Haiti in its 200th year as a sovereign nation. Acclaimed poet Marc Bamuthi Joseph adeptly fuses hip-hop, spoken word, and live music to explore the narrow space between history, myth and speculation, bursting the boundaries of racism and ignorance to reach a new kind of understanding. Through collaboration with composer John Santos, three young writers from Youth Speaks, choreographers Adia Whitaker, Rennie Harris and Stacy Prince, and director Kamilah Forbes, Bamuthi Joseph merges urgent voices, music and movement in a timely and poignant multimedia work.

Marc Bamuthi Joseph is an arts activist living in Oakland, CA. He is a three-time winner of San Francisco’s Poetry Grand Slam. He won the 1999 National Poetry Slam with Team San Francisco, and founded and continues to host Second Sundays, the nation’s largest ongoing monthly spoken
word gathering. He is a Gallard Fellow, an AmeriCorps fellow, and the 2003 San Francisco Bay Guardian GOLDIE award winner in Spoken Word. His proudest work, however, has been with Youth Speaks, where he mentors thirteen to nineteen year old writers, co-facilitates an interdisciplinary
workshop with bassist Marcus Shelby, and develops the Living Word Festival for Literary Arts.