Add Some Hip Hop to Your Summer Plans

Looking for unique and exciting performances to fill up your summer schedule?  The Hip-Hop Theater Festival taking place across various venues throughout DC is the perfect festival to check out!  Taking place from July 7th to July 14^th, the week provides different performances throughout the week pertaining to Hip-Hop Theater. Based off the idea that theater is a great way to express any cultural movement, in it’s 11^th Anniversary the Hip-Hop Theater Festival showcases the variety and importance of hip-hop dance and performance to our culture.  The Festival reveals how hip-hop is breaking new ground all the time and having a positive impact on the communities that it has become a part of over time.  The stories told through the performances relate to contemporary and current themes pertinent to our own generation and time.  The Festival provides an arena for current and young artists to express their own stories and ideas through hip-hop performance. 

Different events that the Festival is holding help promote unique viewing opportunities within the festival itself.  The first Saturday on the 7^th is focused around a teach-in.  It is focused on strengthening the hip-hop network and creating a jumping-off point for artists and creators interested in celebrating and honoring hip-hop as an art form.  The festival really begins to kick off on Monday on the 9^th with the opening night party.  Different hip-hop artists will be there to showcase their work in addition to a variety of food and an open bar.

Throughout the week there are more activities as well.  Wednesday the 11^th there is a poetry based theater project called Say You Heard My Echo.  This work focuses around a story of three Asian American women coping with the effects of 9/11 and provides a creative narrative for viewers to experience.  Further, on the 14^th there is a large DC Luvs Dilla Benefit concert at the end of the week as well.

One of the larger performances throughout the week is the premiere of the show Fat Boy on Friday the 13^th and Saturday the 14^th.  Directed by Teo Castellanos, this captivating performance focuses around the themes of both scarcity and juxtaposing abundances throughout the world.  This theme is explored through a variety of styles and cultures such as general hip-hop dancing, dub, to spoken word itself.  The premiering of Fat Boy near the culmination of the week further imparts the importance of allowing artistic creativity and showcasing the variety of hip-hop culture that the Festival provides to the public.

In it’s 11^th Anniversary the Festival continues to promote cutting edge work for the DC public.  They showcase the idea of taking hip-hop performance to a different and unique level that makes this Festival different than any other Hip-Hop Festival around.  With such a positive energy and outlook that the artists and creators of the Festival provide, these performances provide an exciting venue for DC to experience a unique form of theater.  The Hip-Hop Theater Festival provides is a refreshing experience for those seeking exciting cultural opportunities within the DC metro area. 

More about the festival HERE.