Hip-hop choreographers Kwikstep and Rokafella, human beatboxers Adam Matta and Yako 440, director Chris Edwards, and playwright Aaron Jafferis collaborate on HOW TO BREAK – using hip-hop music, movement, and theatre to tell the stories of teenagers learning to live while their bodies are breaking.
A b-girl and b-boy – 16-year-olds dealing with leukemia and sickle cell, respectively – meet in the hospital. They break and pop their way through diagnoses in search of a gut understanding of their “sick” blood. A nurse – wielding medical instruments, a looping machine, and a microphone – samples patients’ breath and heartbeats, mixing in vocal percussion to create hip-hop hospital soundscapes. A pediatrician tries to balance the fluent front of words he gives his patients with the fear and doubt bubbling underneath.
HOW TO BREAK asks how teenagers, and the rest of us, learn to break. We’re taught to front like we’re okay, but when our bodies betray us in the middle of adolescence, vulnerability breaks through. It’s a hip-hop compliment to call someone “ill.” Could our shared ill-ness, our oddness, our broken-ness, connect us?
HOW TO BREAK was developed at the 2011 & 2010 Oregon Shakespeare Festival Mixing Texts workshops, CAP21 and the Take Your Time festival.
"[Jafferis] is a talent worth changing your plans for" -ConnecticutPoet Online
About Aaron
Aaron Jafferis is a hip hop poet and playwright. Read his bio, his CV, or contact him.
How to Break
A b-girl and b-boy – 16-year-olds dealing with leukemia and sickle cell, respectively – meet in the hospital. They break and pop their way through diagnoses in search of a gut understanding of their “sick” blood. A nurse – wielding medical instruments, a looping machine, and a microphone – samples patients’ breath and heartbeats, mixing in vocal percussion to create hip-hop hospital soundscapes. A pediatrician tries to balance the fluent front of words he gives his patients with the fear and doubt bubbling underneath.
HOW TO BREAK asks how teenagers, and the rest of us, learn to break. We’re taught to front like we’re okay, but when our bodies betray us in the middle of adolescence, vulnerability breaks through. It’s a hip-hop compliment to call someone “ill.” Could our shared ill-ness, our oddness, our broken-ness, connect us?
HOW TO BREAK was developed at the 2011 & 2010 Oregon Shakespeare Festival Mixing Texts workshops, CAP21 and the Take Your Time festival.