Representa! The New World of Hip-Hop is an original work of theater offering a new perspective on US-Cuba relations through the artistic languages of hip-hop, theater and live Cuban music. Utilizing rhymed narratives, monologues, dialogue, slides and music Representa! delves into the contradictory and complex society of present day Cuba in relationship to its growing hip-hop community, while at the same time, reflecting on the particular relationship that Bay Area residents have with Cuba including the misconceptions and delusions many hold about Cuban society. Representa! is based on a premise that there is a broader Latino identity that transcends artificially created borders and that has a radically different agenda than commercial hip-hop as it is defined in the United States. What does “Representing” mean for people of the hip-hop generation who speak Spanish, are bi-cultural, and may have grown up in radically different social/political systems? Written and performed by Bay Area Latino poet and performance artist Paul S. Flores, with Cuban rapper Julio Cardenas, with direction and dramaturgy by Obie Award winner Danny Hoch.

NiNO MAiZ/Corn Child is a collage of stories distilled from the writings/experiences of children and youth in Mexico City and Richmond, California, layered in images drawn from urban and indigenous myths of childhood. Performed and directed by Mexico’s leading alternative theatre company, Me xich co Teatro, in collaboration with Iron Triangle Theater (ITT), a resident company of East Bay Center for the Performing Arts in Richmond, CA, the genesis of NiNO MAiZ dates back several years to informal discussion between the leaders of the two theater groups and their reflections on the myths of the indigenous Tenek people of the Huastecan region of Mexico – stories where god, children, and creativity are merged into one essence and symbolized by swaddled ears of corn, still carried in the arms of adults during their ceremonies. Provoked by the discussion, the two theater companies who are dedicated to serving the under-served communities in their respective communities, began collecting fragments, exploring dramatic characters of their own stories... a child hiding under the skirt of Mama who is doing crack, a little corn girl swallowing a crow’s excrement and becoming pregnant, a garbage-filled living room where a boy builds a bomb to free his father imprisoned for selling dope, an alcoholic immigrant threatening to shoot himself in front of his three children, a girl asking Jesus why she is her color, a girl prostitute who soon will celebrate her 15th birthday in love with an adolescent transvestite who is also a prostitute, some boys in an azotea looking for matches and asking themselves if they are alive or dead, a shaman searching for the souls of lost children, a beggar who cares for street children, a devil of the guardia who teaches children to steal....

Eddy Armando, artistic director of Teatro Experimental La Mama, is one of Columbia’s most famous theatre artists. He will direct Superación, created by members of La Casa Cultural Colombiana. The term superación (overcoming is the closest English translation) is used by some Latino immigrants to the United States to describe a number of the conditions/elements that relate to their decisions to come to the U.S., the paths by which they make the journey and then the coming to terms with the realities of living here. It can mean escaping countries afflicted by poverty or warfare, it can also mean improving one’s condition both spiritually and materially, it can mean learning to speak English, it can mean overcoming bureaucratic obstacles in U.S. consulate and immigration offices or literally physical barriers such as border patrols or fences. It can be used to declare great expectations and ironically to describe life in the new country if the American dream proves to be a mirage. Superación validates and gives voice to the experiences of a community of people from a specific culture within Latin America, the socio-economic reasons for their wanting to leave their country, the course of their journey to the United States, what they found when they got here and their current reality.