The Living Word Project Presents the 7th Annual Living Word Festival RACE IS FICTION A 10-day Festival produced by the Resident Theater company of Youth Speaks and Curated by Artistic Director Marc Bamuthi Joseph Featuring New Performance Works, Live Music, and a Host of Outreach Activities Including Workshops, Panels, and a Live Graffiti Battle October 17-26, 2008 in San Francisco and Oakland Featured Artists and Participants Include Mos Def, Goapele, Rafael Casal, Daveed Diggs, Nico Cary, Chinaka Hodge, Jason Samuels Smith, Jacinta Vlach, Guillermo Gomez Pena, The Kev Choice Ensemble, SF Jazz Youth All-Stars. The Living Word Festival kicks off on October 17, with workshops and performances co-hosted by SF Green Festival, Global Exchange, and Grind 4 Green at the Museum of the African Diaspora (MOAD) in downtown San Francisco. The workshops are followed by a lunchtime outdoor concert with Goapele and the Kev Choice Ensemble at Yerba Buena Gardens at 12:30pm. The following afternoon join us for a FREE Mos Def performance featuring Los Rakas, DJ Leydis, The Hood Games Skate and Bike expo and the 2nd Annual Estria's Invitational Living Word Graffiti Battle. Living Word Festival 2008 RACE IS FICTION OCTOBER 17, 2008 10am Museum of the African Diaspora, SF MoMA, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts 685 Mission Street (at Third), San Francisco Workshops and performances co-hosted by Youth Speaks, SF Green Festival, Global Exchange, and Grind for the Green. FREE (Registration is Now Closed to the Public) 12:30pm Yerba Buena Gardens 760 Howard Street, San Francisco Lunchtime outdoor concert with Goapele, Urban Word NYC and Kev Choice Ensemble FREE OCTOBER 18 11am-5pm red black and GREEN Environmental Caucus and Concert at deFremery Park (aka Little Bobby Hutton Park) 1651 Adeline Street Oakland, CA FREE Featuring the 2nd annual Estria's Invitational Living Word Graffiti Battle, Bamboo Architecture, a lowrider bike demo with Scraper Bikes, a skateboard expo presented by Hood Games, and a free outdoor musical concert featuring Mos Def. SINCE 2001, The Living Word Festival (LWF) has hosted an annual gathering of future thinking, urban centered performers, placing our artist-curated performance series and educational forums in one of the country's most generous audience environments. Through seven festivals, more than 25,000 people have enjoyed several hundred artists of various disciplines from around the country in venues as varied as San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art and West Oakland's Black New World. In October 2008, Artistic Director and 2006 United States Artists Rockefeller Fellow Marc Bamuthi Joseph initiates a conversation between novelists (Adam Mansbach) dancers, (Jason Samuels Smith and Jacinta Vlach) performance artists (Guillermo Gomez Pena), environmentalists (Green for All; Global Exchange) and musicians (Mos Def, Goapele, The Kev Choice Ensemble). Most prominently, LWF 2008 features new generation theater including the LWP commissions War Peace: The One Drop Rule, written by The Get Back Crew with a score by SF Jazz Youth All-Stars, a new solo work by spoken word pioneer Regie Cabico; and the SF Premiere and co-production of Mapa Corpo2 by Guillermo Gomez-Pena's La Pocha Nostra. In addition LWP is initiating a community based eco-equity project called red, black, and GREEN, highlighting bamboo construction, skateboard and low rider bike expos, The 2nd Annual Estria Invitational Living Word Graffiti Battle and live performance by Mos Def. SPREAD THE WORD. . . . . .This is where you want to be. . .hip hop does not dominate the body of content, and yet, hip hop is IN the body of the players on stage. A festival born out of forced labor AND pandemic unemployment. Jim Crow and Reaganomics. Blues and Hip Hop. After-flood America. Since 2001, The Living Word Festival has focused on a particular school of theatrical thought: Saul Williams, Carl Hancock Rux, Danny Hoch, Sarah Jones, Rennie Harris, Cristal Truscott, Mos Def. For 13 years, Youth Speaks Inc has identified, and supported a national network of teen poets, convening them annually as Brave New Voices. As these young people come of age as practicing writer-performers, they represent a shift in linguistic approach and a rise in standard of performance poetry for proscenium. In 2008 and beyond, Artistic Director Marc Bamuthi Joseph brings together the most compelling of these intra-aesthetic, intergenerational voices. Universes and Guillermo Gomez Pena. Chinaka Hodge and Nicole Klaymoon. Tania Isaac and DJ Qbert. Dave Eggers and George Watsky. A Left Coast, Left-Leaning(out of your Hybrid Impala) kinda interdisciplinary artist-curated Festival. Living. Word. VISIT: www.youthspeaks.org