'Scourge' deftly mixes dance, word

By Mary Ellen Hunt
Contra Costa Times

WITH A SELLOUT CROWD packing the bleacher seating at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Forum space, Marc Bamuthi Joseph's "Scourge" made its raw and much-awaited debut Thursday night as the most high-profile event of the Hip-Hop Theater Festival. more

Word up! Joseph turns Haitian-American experience into hip-hop theater
[Joseph's] latest effort is the 70-minute "Scourge".... The work uses spoken poetry, live music, dance and film to examine the history of Haiti, the troubled Caribbean homeland of New York-born Joseph’s family.
But “Scourge” isn’t only about Haiti. The deeper theme, according to Joseph, 31, is the process of becoming American.

‘Scourge’ examines Haiti in explosive, fluid fashion
Marc Bamuthi Joseph may have been born and raised in Brooklyn, but some part of his soul still resides in Haiti, the land of his ancestors. In his multimedia “Scourge,” presented in its Boston premiere over the weekend by CRASHarts, Joseph’s story spills out in the rhythmic stomp of feet, a fusillade of drumbeats, aching vocals, and vivid poetry that captures the issues and emotions of assimilation with a potent urgency.

Nacho Duato, Jorma Elo, Marc Bamuthi Joseph
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The other big dance event in town was Marc Bamuthi Joseph’s Scourge.... Scourge is also about Haiti, but unlike Nacho Duato, Bamuthi Joseph is working from the inside, as a Haitian-American now based in Oakland, California. Scourge is a free-flowing mix of dance styles, spoken texts, video, and percussive music by Sekou Gibson, Ajayi Jackson, and Tommy Shepherd. The performers have varied backgrounds, and they all seem skilled at dancing, singing, drumming, and talking.