Intermedia Arts
and MAPP International Productions
present
Marc Bamuthi Joseph/
The Living Word Project's
WORD BECOMES FLESH
Written and directed by
Marc Bamuthi Joseph.
Performed by
Dahlak Brathwaite, Daveed Diggs,
Dion Decibels, Khalil Anthony Peebles,
Michael Turner and B.Yung.
Word Becomes Flesh is a deeply honest and raw physical performance, blending spoken word, dance and live music.
This series of performed letters from a young, single father to his unborn son, fuses tender stories, playful wit—and at
times, purposeful rage—to give voice to complexities and contradictions surrounding race and gender in America.
Led by an exceptionally talented cast of emerging poet-performers, with deep honesty and raw physicality, this play
integrates hip-hop theater and contemporary dance performance to deconstruct black male identity in the 21st century.
This show critically, lyrically and choreographically shares one man's personal experience of fatherhood—and in doing so
examines the legacy of patriarchy and male privilege, the continuum between fathers and sons, and the relationships of
women and men. Together these narratives confront the intersection between the reality and the mythology of the black
male body—from the cotton field to the athletic field and all spaces in between.
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Discussion Questions and Study Guide for WORD BECOMES FLESH
1) “Heartbeat. These are my tools: verbal, music and movement.”
“I wonder how fast your heart beat when you ran away from me, Pop.”
The heartbeat rhythm can be heard at various times throughout Word Becomes Flesh. At other times we hear heavy
breathing, as of a person running, or struggling to breathe. What do the heartbeat and the breath signify at different
moments? You may want to think about the following themes:
Pregnancy
History
Birth
Fear
Hope
Determination
Choice
Love
2) “Son, this is to sever the cycle. Our story, remade in your flesh. Living words, a spoken world so you
will never have to guess about why I might choose to be absent.”
How and when do the dancers/speakers address the following themes?
Parenthood
Parent/Child Relationships
Fatherhood
Motherhood
Repeating Cycles
Childhood
Breaking Cycles
3) “I’ve never been a woman—that being a story in itself.”
“I want you to grow up like good music. It doesn’t have to be so hard.”
How and when do the speakers/dancers address, challenge, question or complicate societal expectations/various popular
representations of the following?
Gender
Gender Roles
Masculinity/Manhood
Femininity/Womanhood
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Romantic Relationships
4) “Every day begins with the black man on the run.”
“Before they turn 18, so many brown boys’ lives already done.”
How and when do the speakers/dancers address race? How do ideas about race and gender interact in different scenes?
5) “Welcome to the spoken world.” ~ “You are divine—feel me?”
*Word Becomes Flesh is structured as a series of performed letters from a young single father to his unborn son. How
does it feel to witness something so intimate? Why do you think the artist(s) wanted to share this as a performed artwork?
*Do you find yourself identifying with the father figure, or with the intended recipient of the letters—the future son? Or
both? Is there another speaker/figure/character you find yourself identifying with at times—and if so, who is it?
6) Transitions
What do you feel in the moments of transition in this piece—in the moments when the current speaker stops speaking and
starts moving in silence, or when one speaker/dancer is replaced with another, or when the lights rise or fall, or when all
the performers move/dance/speak together?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Nigger Mentality // Free performance & discussion; reservations required. Recommended for ages 12+
Wednesday, April 17 | 10AM-12PM
In Word Becomes Flesh, the scene entitled Nigger Mentality takes audience members on a journey into the birth of the
word nigger, and its accompanying mentality. The subject matter of this workshop is sensitive and demands an ability to
think about the word and subject matter in a critical and mature way. This piece mythologizes the origination of the nigger
mentality, and invites participants to discuss the genealogy as it is detailed through the text and performance. Led by
Word Becomes Flesh artists and local, multidisciplinary artist Shá Cage.
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SCENE: “Nigger Mentality”
(transcribed from a video of the performance
available at http://vimeo.com/26629901)
[No light on stage] RECORDED VOICE:
“Who are you? You don’t know? Don’t tell me ‘negro,’ that’s nothing. What were you before the white man
named you a negro? And where were you? And what did you have? What was yours? What language did you speak then?
What was your name? It couldn’t have been Smith, or Jones, or Birch or Powell. That wasn’t your name. They don’t have
those kind of names where you & I came from. No, what was your name? And why don’t you now know what your name
was then. Where did it go? Where did you lose it? Who took it, and how did he take it? What tongue did you speak? How
did The Man take your tongue? Where is your history? How did The Man wipe out your history? What did The Man do to
make you as dumb as you are right now?”
[Stage lights rise] DANCERS/SPEAKERS:
“Come here. Come see me. A brown boy’s first and worst enemy. The brown boy’s first and worst enemy: the
Nigger Mentality. I live in a box in the center of the sun. The final lap of lux and I cannot see the leader, trapped in the
crosshairs of thirteen heaters with a singular aim. Like distant thunder, a voice rains: BOY, WHAT IS YOUR NAME? My
impulse is to obediently respond, but knowledge absconds. I’ve forgotten. Command of the fact displaced in memory’s
space by images of picking cotton. Justified by his only begotten son. Apparently he was born up the block where my
carrier comes from. Ill conundrum. But paradox is not new.
They call me confused. Uh uh. I’m very well trained. I just can’t find my name in the bone white glare of this box
unlocked only by a key lurking somewhere out there in the dark. Belly of the beast. Huh? Do not touch. Without fail, I
listen, it’s not in my disposition to question what I beens told. I’m going on six centuries old.
My lineage unfolds with hate. See, hate was my great-great-Gran. Had several kids dispersed across several lands.
Man co-oped, then made manifest parties like division, murder, greed, excess. See greed had incestuous sex with his
cousin neglect from the West. Genetic defects produced an unfortunate deformity. They had a baby named ignorance,
who just could not see. And ignorance fell in love with hate, who had by now turned in on herself, burned within self. It
would make your heart melt. There was a heartfelt connection between self-hate and ignorance. Came thence my racist
parents—I mean my parent racists. Traces of a seed originated with greed so racist’s primary need was to feed on hunger
for eternity, universal so we dropped the T, substituted with an M, said fuck the racist individual, I’M going to be
RACISM. An institution.
God complex delusions started cooling with my dad. Gave him that [?]. Told him you all of that. And Racism got
fat off his own PR. Said I’m the star of this show. Now here we go. He embedded himself in the cornerstones of all the
new nations. Made himself chair of the house of appropriations. Nothing was safe. Until chaste capitalism slipped into
frame. Hey baby, what’s your name? Racism spitting game, cuz Capitalism was a looker. She flipped it on him like he
was a two-bit hooker. He took her and shook her, cuz dad’s way violent. She looked him dead in the eye and Pops fell
steady silent. Compliant.
LOOK RACISM, WE GONNA DO IT LIKE THIS. FIRST OF ALL, WE GONNA PRETEND THAT YOU DON’T
EXIST. THEN WE’RE GONNA TELL THE WORLD TO SERVE ME, A MUCH MORE ATTRACTIVE INTEREST. BUT
WE’LL SHAPE EVERYTHING SO WE BOTH BENEFIT.
She leaned in slow, kissed him on the lips. Pop nodded his head. It’s been that way ever since. Shortly thereafter
they gave birth to my brother Slavery. A few years later…
ALONG CAME ME.
I’m actually glad I don’t possess any of these family traits. I don’t hate anyone. Well except my carrier and his
crew, but I do love my master, and I worship his truth.
I must admit I’m whipped weak by Greed’s fleet genes running through my core.
I got mounds of self-hate behind the closet doors, skeletons and secrets wearing sins and Friedrich Nietzsche’s
brilliant theories.
I grow weary trying to draw defenses against self-constructed attacks. I try to relax, contemplate my link to
ignorance, which really makes no sense cuz I GOTS KNOWLEDGE.
I know Timbo, Polo, Nike, Moscino, Nautica, Hilfiger, Versace, Vuitton, Dolce and Gabano, Prada, Kani, Levis,
BK, CK, DKNY, Anne Klein, Fubu, Guess, Rolex, Lex, Beamers, Benz, I know them all.
I know the ends don’t justify the means.
I know god is rectangular and greyish-green.
I know this ordo seclorum don’t include me.
I know how to serve my master.
I know how to run in place. Faster and smoother than
PANTHERS AND COUGARS AND COONS, OH MY. I KNOW SIR. WHAT I DON’T KNOW WHY ARE THE
MINDS INCLINED TO DESIGN A SYSTEM WHICH CONFINES MY CARRIER AND BINDS THEM TO THE
CELLS OF POLITICAL TIES FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE OF PROMOTING THEIR OWN ECONOMIC
ADVANTAGE.
I don’t understand it. Do we live on the same planet but these walls are like granite, and I cannot escape. All this
light got me twisted, consumed by a fable written in invisible ink that my master swears is his fate.
My master eliminates all fiction. I will deviate never. I’d rather beat my head against the walls of a cell, trying to
remember my name forever.
Thirty rows of 222 bird-eye sized holes calling gently, subtly, suggesting in the dark, might be a key, which gives
my name back to me.
But I don’t want to be in the dark.
I DON’T WANT TO BE IN THE DARK.
I don’t want to be dark. I don’t want to be dark.
I DON’T WANT TO BE IN THE DARK.
I don’t want to be in the dark.
I DON’T WANT TO BE IN THE DARK.
I don’t want to be. I don’t want to be.
I don’t even want to be—
The almighty Nigger Mentality.”
[Stage lights go out.]
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Discussion Questions for “The Nigger Mentality” scene in Word Becomes Flesh
1) After the lights fade out at the end of this scene, the dancers/speakers can be heard breathing/gasping
rhythmically. The lights fade and rise four more times. Each time the lights come back on, the dancers/speakers
catch their breath and perform a different action. What do these actions symbolize, and what does it mean
(and/or how does it make you feel) to see them performed in progression after the previous scene?
2) Novus ordo seclorum is Latin for ‘New Order of the Ages.’ These words appear on the back of the Great
Seal of the United States, which was first adopted in 1782, and is printed on the back of the U.S. one-dollar bill.
The creators of the seal meant for these words to refer to a ‘New American Era’ following the Declaration of
Independence in 1776. One of the speakers in this scene says “I know this ordo seclorum don’t include me.”
What does that mean, in this context?
3) “My lineage unfolds with hate.”
How do the speakers/dancers in this scene connect history, slavery, racism as an institution, hate, selfhatred, ignorance, oppression, violence, cultural violence, materialism and capitalism? How does this scene
connect the ‘birth’ of racism to its incarnation in today’s world? How does racism affect the individual, and
how does it affect society as a whole? What does “Nigger Mentality” mean in this context? What is this scene
saying about the N-word and its history?
4) “ALONG CAME ME. I’m actually glad I don’t possess any of these family traits. I don’t hate anyone.
Well except my carrier and his crew, but I do love my master, and I worship his truth.”
Who or what do you think ‘me’ refers to in this scene? Who is the ‘carrier,’ and who is the ‘master’ that
‘me’ refers to? What is your attitude towards/reaction to this ‘me’ speaker, and towards the so-called ‘truth’ of
his ‘master’? How do you think the artists feel about this speaker?
Study guide prepared by Wahida Omar—[email protected]
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This guide helps to further explore what you experienced today at Intermedia Arts.
It may help to create conversations; to inspire your own art; to expand your mind;
to engage with this work beyond the time of your visit.
Thank you for sharing your energy with us. We look forward to future happenings!
This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board,
thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund and by a grant from the
National Endowment for the Arts.
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