Sunday, January 21, 2007

After 8 Years, Universes
(the ground-breaking poetic theater ensemble)
Returns For A Full Night Feature and LIVE CD Recording!
at Nuyorian Poets Cafe! 236 E. 3rd Street • New York, NY (between Avenues B and C)

Be a part of history in the making!
Mark Your Calendar Now.

A short review by spoken word poet, Jerry Quickley, on an appearance by Universes at 33-1/3, a club in LA...

"I have some friends in from NY that performed at 33 1/3 last night. The name of their crew is Universes, and they're out of the Bronx.

It was the only time we've had artists receive a standing ovation, for each and every one of their pieces. They're unbelievably good. It was the best spoken word performance I've seen in a VERY long time.

Imagine a 5 person group poem where every person is an incredibly talented poet/performer in their own right, but their performances blend together and help elevate each of them higher and further. It was a truly phat set last night. Seriously, it was completely off the hook. I can't possibly rate them more highly."

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A troupe of 5 multi-disciplined performers who fuse Poetry, Theater, jazz, Hip-Hop, Politics, Down Home Blues and Spanish Boleros to create moving, challenging and entertaining theatrical works. The group breaks the bounds of traditional theater to create their own brand of visionary theatre that is born in the minds and souls of the artists who take what was, refine it into what is and create what will be.

Universes consists of five members: Steven Sapp, Flaco Navaja, Gamal Abdel Chasten, Lemon and Mildred Ruiz.

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From "The Source", 2000, by Eisa Davis

Universes is a perfect example of discipline and freedom, and their unique work deserves a closer look as they break down the theatre establishment's doors. A crew of two dreadlocked morenos (Steven Sapp and Gamal Chasten), a Lemon (that's his name), a Flaco (who is rather trim, with the surname Navaja), and a set of lungs the old folks try to keep locked upin church (Mildred Ruiz).

Universes are known for pieces, or collages, that flow organically from urban life and decay. Starting with favorite songs, feelings and ideas grow into tales about ass whuppins, junkies noddin, or Ali's quick jabbin, to take a random sample. They add unmistakeably hip hop beats with soul claps and stomps, then eavesdropped snatches of subway dialogue provide the final layer of the word on the street. "We yell out stuff that you hear walkin down the block that you never listen to but you remember it," Lemon explains. It's true: you try not to hear that man asking for change or a cigarette, or that woman's monotone of "battery one dollar." But it's all there in Universes' pieces, the outcome of a process so inclusive and effective that their method has been adopted by the New York Board of Education for its citywide drama curriculum. Perhaps they possess such, ahem, universality because they have emerged from such an intricately programmed matrix.

Sapp, a Bronx native who grew up with frequent power outages due to Flash's block parties across the street, is a director and playwright as well as the alpha poet of the group. He cut his theatre teeth at Bard College, met Ruiz there while directing her stage debut, and it's been Lucy and Desi ever since. (They married last October.) The recipient of honors from prestigious theatre institutions like New Dramatists and the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference, Sapp co-founded The Point with Ruiz, a South Bronx cultural mecca offering classes and performances in theatre, poetry, dance, visual art (the legendary graffiti artists of Tats Cru have a workspace on the property), and other invaluable services to the community's youth.

It's a family affair with Ruiz, also a dancer, helming the flamenco department, Chasten teaching martial arts, and Flaco coaching kids how to use computers they can't afford. Lemon does similar work as a youth counselor at Brooklyn's El Puente school, which made news in recent years for taking graffiti seriously enough to offer a class in it.

" Young people are our base," Sapp states plainly. Chasten elaborates. "We make sure our young people can check out our work, reserve thirty, forty seats no matter what the venue, 'cause it's about them. It's always gonna be about them." Later Sapp remembers his childhood days dancing on the street for money. "We would always dance in front of theatres. I always wondered what was in there. When I finally got a chance to go in, I saw Dreamgirls. That was all black people so I thought all of it was gonna be black people. The more I went, the less and less I saw of us, so I was like, I want some 17 year old kid to be like I got 35 dollars. Let's go see Universes. Let's go see that."

These Universes have only been around for two years, but because they were all heavy hitting solo artists prior to the group format, they're heading upriver like spawning salmon. They have traveled to colleges all over the country, downtown to the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, up the Hudson to Sing Sing prison, to the New York Shakespeare Festival's Public Theatre to perform with Ossie Davis, Sonia Sanchez, and the Latino comedy troupe Culture Clash at a benefit for Mumia Abu-Jamal. Their newest evening-length work, "U," hit coveted East Village performance space PS 122 and Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum late last year, under the stewardship of acclaimed director Jo Bonney. Producers from Broadway to MTV have their eyes cocked for upcoming projects with the group.

But Universes maintains that the collective is more important than fleeting fame. "I started writing Ôcause my grandmother died and someone at my job gave me a journal," Flaco remembers. "The first thing I wrote was a poem about her." That poem prompted Sapp and Ruiz to bring Flaco into the fold. Lemon joined after the three of them performed at a benefit for him. "I was locked up for a warrant that I had in Ohio," says Lemon matter-of-factly. "I was working in a community center with kids everyday, in the poetry scene making a name for myself, but I get arrested. The kids got me home. They wrote to me while I was in prison, sent letters to the judge and had this big benefit. The judge sent me home on a plane, paid for and everything. And when I got home and was watching the tape of the benefit, everybody's giving me love, then all of a sudden comes this group and I'm like, I don't know these people. I was just impressed by the fact that what they were doing was different, it was new, it was something that was catchy."

The group recently teamed up with critically acclaimed director, Jo Bonney (left), to create "SLANGUAGE:The Evolution of Tongue in Time" a full evening work where traditional theater synthesizes with poetry, storytelling, rhythm, music, song and dance.

After he came up to the Point to read a poem and to thank them, Flaco asked if he wanted to be down with the group. "That's when they taught me to take my life struggle and make it theatrical," Lemon finishes. Percussionist and former vascular technologist Gamal Chasten was enlisted after a throwdown at the Nuyorican. The five of them received a standing ovation for a piece that they'd created in their van moments before the show. "We've still got a long way to go," Sapp admits after a performance at Brooklyn's famed Sunday night Tea Party. Bonney, the award-winning director of one of Sapp's heroes, playwright-performer Eric Bogosian, is helping Universes develop their narrative strength and to strike a balance between staying underground while crossing over into a wider audience.

But no matter who you are, there's nothing like seeing Universes for the first time. Their energy is so spontaneous and multilayered, you aren't sure what hit you. Sapp and Ruiz harmonize during a rehearsal sound check without even trying to. In performance, Lemon provides the hardcore stylings of Brooklyn and his bids, taking on the persona of a man who shoots a baby rather than be unsure of his paternity. Chasten's jazz-Zen mind leads him to contemplative yet explosive terrain as he considers single suspended moment: the nod of acknowledgement to another brother on the street. And Flaco is Flaco, effortless and joyously wry, even as he sideswipes poets and political activists who are more fashion plate than for real. On stage, the group's presence is pure, filled with an acute sense of modesty as well as one of entitlement. Perhaps it's because they still have day jobs.