Spectrum Dance Theater - A Rap on Race

Performance Dates: Friday, February 9, 8pm Saturday, February 10, 2pm Saturday, February 10, 8pm Co-created by director/choreographer Donald Byrd and actress/playwright Anna Deavere Smith Kathryn Van Meter, Margaret Mead Donald Byrd, James Baldwin Nearly 50 years ago, two towering public figures—African-American novelist James Baldwin and white anthropologist Margaret Mead—sat together and recorded an epic and intimate seven-and-a-half-hour conversation about race in America. Now, visionary choreographer Donald Byrd and renowned playwright Anna Deavere Smith collaborate to bring that conversation into the present moment, in a new dance-theater work performed by Byrd's acclaimed Spectrum Dance Theater. A Rap on Race, named after the book published from a transcript of that meeting, combines text with movement and music to communicate the complexities of talking about race, at a time when that conversation is as necessary as ever. "It evokes a whole roiling nation caught in the cobwebs of history..." (The Seattle Times). #BerkeleyRADICAL #JoiningGenerations