What is Hip hop Theater?
For the first post of the new year I’m revisiting the concept of hip hop theater.
I hope everyone has read Professor Nicole Hodges Persley’s book, “Sampling and Remixing Blackness in Hip Hop Theater and Performance” that I mentioned last month. I was reminded of it when I recently watched a video clip from a musical we’ve just become involved in. The musical is called Syncing Ink. We are excited to be involved in the production. You will be hearing a lot about it going forward.
The video is directed at an audience that may never have heard about hip hop theater. So, rather than being a video about the play, it talks what hip hop theater is. It makes the point that in order for a work of theatre to be a work of hip hop theater, it must do one of two things:
- Hip hop theater incorporates four elements of hip hop. They are the DJ, the MC, the taggers, the people who create Graffiti, and b-boying, the dancers.
- Second, it argues that Hip hop theater is an artistic expression created by black people for black people.
An Expanded Audience
While I agree that what the video describes is certainly hip hop theater, I’m not sure that only those works of theater that satisfies the video’s criteria are hip hop theatre. In short, it is not exhaustive.
The next two blogs will look at the suggestions the video makes for hip hop theater.
Stay tuned next week!