Aaron Jafferis: Hip Hop Poet and Playwright » Uncategorized

charge

aaron — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 04:09:40 +0000

This summer, I’m performing my hip-hop poetry at a venue near you (That is, if you happen to be in New Haven on July 1st for Free 2 Spit, or GIA in Castleton, VT on July 7th, or the World Fellowship Center in Conway, NH on July 16th.) Jon Rua and Yayo Serka collaborated with me on the above piece, Charge, when I should have been working on Stuck Elevator at the 2011 Sundance Theatre Lab in Banff, Canada. They will not be at any of my upcoming performances, however, because they were traumatized by elk in Banff, and elk are related to moose, and moose are in New England, and New England is where my performances are.

Be ill.

aaron — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 14:52:01 +0000

Hip-hop choreographers Kwikstep and Rokafella, human beatboxers Adam Matta and Yako 440, director Christopher Edwards and I are creating HOW TO BREAK – using hip-hop movement, rhyme, vocal percussion, and theatre to tell the stories of teenagers learning to live while their bodies are breaking.

HOW TO BREAK was born at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s 2010 Mixing Texts workshop. After a few more devising/rehearsing sessions (thanks, Bronx Academy of Arts & Dance, the Parachute Factory, and NYU!), we performed a 45-minute workshop at The Big Room’s Take Your Time fall festival in New Haven. It was so ill, we cannot wait for our next break.

Refuge(es)

aaron — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 14:38:21 +0000

From Iraq, Afghanistan, Ghana, Congo, Cuba, Somalia, Guinea, Eritrea, Chad, Bhutan…

I’m working with my hometown drama crew – Collective Consciousness Theatre (CCT) – and New Haven’s refugees – persecuted people from around the world – to create STORIES OF A NEW AMERICA – a series of multicultural, multilingual monologues and vignettes capturing true stories about people starting over in New Haven. STORIES OF A NEW AMERICA premieres as part of Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services’ (IRIS) celebration of World Refugee Day on Wednesday, June 22^nd, 2011.

Nicaragua

aaron — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 14:34:48 +0000

I spent a week in León, Nicaragua when I was 15, 16, and 17. That revolutionary city blew my mind. This February I went back, and began a theatre collaboration with the New Haven / León Sister City Project, Bregamos Community Theater, and the Yale Council of Latin American/Iberian Studies. We’re doing Theatre of the Oppressed workshops in New Haven and León, creating new theatre in both places. Email me if you want to join us. Here’s more info. Here are a couple of poems I wrote about our connection to Goyena, a rural community outside León where workers from the sugarcane plantation have been dying of kidney disease.

2009 in review

aaron — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:22:37 +0000

Aaron and composer Byron Au Yong are 2009-2010 Artists-in-Residence at the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU to develop STUCK ELEVATOR – including readings at the Museum of Chinese in America (September) and Pearl Studios (November).

Oregon Shakespeare Festival mixes Shakespeare with hip hop theatre artists Rokafella, Rickerby Hinds, the Q brothers, Joe Hernandez-Kolski, Audra Polk, Christopher Edwards, and Aaron at their Mixing Texts workshop in October.

The Old Globe presents a reading of Aaron and composer Ian Williams’ new hip hop musical BLOOD MAGIC (formerly THE WEIRD SISTERS), thanks to a 2009 National Alliance for Musical Theatre Development Grant.

STUCK ELEVATOR excerpts performed at Hand2Mouth’s Risk/Reward New Performance Festival (Portland, OR) and On the Boards’ NW New Works Festival (Seattle) in June.

ReVision Theatre’s production of KINGDOM (Asbury Park, NJ) named Best Musical, Best Book of 2008-09 by Newark Star-Ledger.

World Premiere of KINGDOM – Aaron and Ian Williams’ hip hop / rock musical – at the Tony Award-winning Old Globe in San Diego. KINGDOM is also performed for student and community audiences at Lincoln High School in southeastern San Diego as the centerpiece of a residency in which students work with Aaron to create hip hop theatre connecting the themes of KINGDOM to their community. http://www.theoldglobe.org/tickets/production.aspx?PID=7095.

STUCK ELEVATOR receives a 2009 Creative Capital Award.

Aaron wins the 2009 James Marshall Memorial Poetry Slam at Quinnipiac University.

SHAKESPEARE: THE REMIX produced and toured by the Zachary Scott Theatre (Austin, TX).

Collective Consciousness Theatre in New Haven, CT produces and tours NO LIE and SHAKESPEARE: THE REMIX.