Shown listening to Marc Bamuthi Joseph in April are, from left, Katie Straw '12, Yasin Fairley '12, Ashley Booker '12, dance professor Rachel Boggia and theater lecturer Kati Vecsey. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

Just weeks after Marc Bamuthi Joseph dazzled local audiences with his performance piece red, black & GREEN: a blues, a theater production workshop at Bates is debuting an original adaptation of Joseph’s ballet libretto Home in 7.

Retitled Home, Among Other Transitional Places, this piece integrating dance, drama, poetry and video will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, May 17-19, and at 2 p.m. Sunday, May 20, in Gannett Theater, Pettigrew Hall, 305 College St.

The performances are open to the public at no charge. For more information, please contact 207-786-6161.

Directed by Senior Lecturer in Theater Katalin Vecsey and with choreography and video design by Visiting Assistant Professor of Dance Rachel Boggia, Home, Among Other Transitional Places is the first original mainstage theater-dance collaboration from the Department of Theater and Dance, formed this academic year after the creation of a dance major at the college in 2011.

The seven performers in the piece include six students in the annual theater production workshop held during Short Term, Bates’ intensive five-week spring semester.

A poet, performer and educator, as well as director of performing arts at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, Joseph wrote Home in 7 for performances by the Atlanta Ballet in 2011. As this academic year’s artist in residence at Bates, he worked with the theater workshop faculty and students during the first week of the Short Term course.

“It’s so rare to be able to work with the playwright or originator of a text,” Boggia reflects. “He’s also a great teacher and mentor. He really connects with the students.”

Home, Among Other Transitional Places is a dramatic presentation of Joseph’s six-part autobiographical poem about his relationship with the city of Atlanta. A New York native who attended Morehouse College, Joseph was inspired by the city’s history, particularly stories of the Atlanta child murders in the late 1970s and early ’80s.

“History is made faceless as the next generation loses a connection,” Joseph told Creative Loafing Atlanta, an alternative weekly newspaper. “I’m interested in facilitating that conversation between the solid forms of today and the city’s ghosts.”

The Bates students faced the challenge of making the piece their own without changing the text, a daunting task considering the cast is all women, only one of whom has visited Atlanta. “But it works out fine,” says Vecsey. “It’s really interesting how gender and location hasn’t really been an issue.”

Joseph will make a taped appearance in the digital images projected around the actors and dancers.

The performance is under 45 minutes long and will be followed by a question and answer session with the students, Vecsey and Boggia.

Joseph is one of America’s vital voices in performance, arts education and artistic curation. This year he was an inaugural recipient of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Artist Award, and last year received the Alpert Award in the Arts for Theater. In 2007, he graced the cover of Smithsonian Magazine after being named one of America’s Top Young Innovators in the Arts and Sciences.

Marc Bamuthi Joseph, shown at center during the "Life is Living" festival, Chicago, 2009. Photo by Bethanie Hines.

“The movements for social change and environmental accountability are one and the same,” says Marc Bamuthi Joseph. “And focusing on steps to sustain the planet will ultimately force us to envision a pathway to sustaining humanity.”

Finding that focus is the goal of the stage show red, black & GREEN: a blues, which Joseph and a host of collaborators present in performances at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, April 27-28, at the Lewiston Memorial Armory, 65 Central Ave.

Bates College and the Bates Dance Festival present this widely acclaimed multimedia production that brings to life personal stories about the impacts of a deteriorating environment. Doors will open at 8 p.m., and the piece begins with a 20-minute immersive audience experience on stage.

Tickets cost $20 for the general public and $10 for students, and are available at batestickets.com. Learn more.

Called “as smart and provocative as it is breathtakingly beautiful” by the San Francisco Chronicle, rbGb combines spoken word, music, dance and a stunningly dynamic stage design. Such eclecticism reflects Joseph himself — a true Renaissance man equally talented as a poet, a dancer, educator and activist.

April 24, 2012: Marc Bamuthi Joseph in a half-hour interview with Maine Public Broadcasting’s Suzanne Nance.
April 20, 2012: Joseph is one of 21 artists nationwide to receive the prestigious Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Award.

This full-length performance piece is designed to jumpstart a conversation about environmental justice, social ecology and collective responsibility in the climate-change era. Joseph, one of America’s vital voices in performance and arts education, brings the piece to Lewiston as part of an ongoing relationship with Bates.

“rbGb breaks new artistic ground and delivers a powerful message,” says Laura Faure, director of the Bates Dance Festival. “We’re honored to have had a sustained relationship with the brilliant Marc Bamuthi Joseph over the past nine years, and are thrilled to bring this remarkable work to Maine.”

rbGb reunites seven artists from the acclaimed 2008 work the break/s: a mixtape for stage: writer-performer Joseph; director Michael John Garcés; choreographer Stacey Printz; turntablist/percussionist Tommy Shepherd; documentary filmmaker Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi; lighting designer James Clotfelter; and media designer David Szlasa.

Joseph will be joined onstage in the Lewiston performances by Shepherd, dancer-actor Traci Tolmaire and vocalist Yaw.

Stories for rbGb were developed from material gathered at a series of festivals, held in four cities across the U.S., that use participatory arts and action to advance social and environmental justice in diverse and underserved communities. Under Joseph’s artistic direction, these Life is Living events in Oakland, Calif., Harlem, Chicago and Houston have yielded residents’ testimony as dramatic source material — specifically, the voices of people often left out of discussions about “living green.”

Interviews, poems, films and murals from Life is Living have become words, dance and images that express the challenge of living green where violent crime and poor education are more of a threat than ecological crisis, and that reveal emerging definitions of environmentalism in these communities.

Set into designer Theaster Gates’ malleable stage installation of repurposed building materials and clay objects, and heightened by Jacobs-Fantauzzi’s vivid films and vibrant graffiti murals from Life is Living, rbGb is driven by the idea that valuing your own life, and the life of your community, is the first step to valuing planet Earth.

The production is composed of two sections. Titled “the colored museum” (inspired in part by the George C. Wolfe play of the same name), the first invites spectators on stage to look into the windows of installations that represent four urban regions, and stories and movements from these areas.

In “colors and muses,” audience members return to their seats and watch as the piece extends beyond conversation and focuses on central figures in Houston, New York, Chicago and Oakland.

Sankofa performs during Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2011.

The theme for 2012 King Day programming at Bates is Environmental Justice: Martin Luther King’s Unfinished Agenda. Here’s a schedule, updated Jan. 12, of events related to the observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Jan. 16, 2012. A breakdown of the afternoon workshops appears here. For more information, please call 207-786-6400:

red, black & GREEN: a blues: Performer-activist-educator Marc Bamuthi Joseph presents a staged reading of his multimedia performance piece.
7 p.m. Friday, Jan. 13, Olin Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

The Greenhorns: A film detailing the spirit, practices and challenges of America’s young farming community (2010; 40 min.). Presented by the Bates Environmental Film Festival.
4 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 14, Chase Lounge, 56 Campus Ave.

Gasland: Director Josh Fox screens his film revealing the environmental damage caused by the natural gas mining practice called “fracking” (2010; 107 min.). Presented by the Bates Environmental Film Festival.
3 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 15, Olin Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

Julian Agyeman, a pioneering environmental justice and sustainability advocate, offers the homily for the college’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Memorial Service of Worship.
7 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 15, College Chapel, 275 College St. FMI 207-786-8272.

The following all take place Monday, Jan. 16, 2012:

Julian Agyeman delivers The Dream Lives on: Towards a ‘Just’ Sustainability, the keynote address for Martin Luther King Jr. Day observances.
9:30 a.m. College Chapel, 275 College St.

Concurrent breakout sessions explore options for activism following the keynote address.
11 a.m., rooms TBA, Hedge Hall, 7 Andrews Road (Alumni Walk).

Debaters from Morehouse and Bates colleges address the resolution “Environmental sustainability and social equality are incompatible.” Free, but tickets required — follow this link.
1 p.m., Olin Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

Concurrent workshop sessions explore topics related to the day’s theme.
2:30 & 3:45 p.m., various locations

A Journey of Our Own: A performance by Sankofa, a Bates student group exploring cross-cultural blackness within African diasporic experiences through performative arts like dance, music, theater and spoken word. Free, but tickets required–follow this link.
7:30 p.m., Schaeffer Theatre, 305 College St.

Professor Julian Agyeman. Photograph by Kelvin Ma, Tufts University.

Julian Agyeman, Ph.D., FRSA, a pioneering environmental justice and sustainability advocate, offers the keynote address during Martin Luther King Jr. Day observances at Bates College at 9:30 a.m. Monday, Jan. 16, in the College Chapel, 275 College St.

His keynote address at Bates is titled The Dream Lives on: Towards a ‘Just’ Sustainability.

Martin Luther King Weekend events at Bates also include a spoken-word piece by performer-activist Marc Bamuthi Joseph on Friday, Jan. 13, an environmental film festival during the weekend, and a performance by the Bates student ensemble Sankofa during the evening of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

See the schedule of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Weekend events.

The theme for 2012 King Day programming at Bates is Environmental Justice: Martin Luther King’s Unfinished Agenda. Events on Jan. 16 include a student debate and workshops that explore the Unfinished Agenda theme during the day, and a performance in the evening by the student ensemble Sankofa. Related events take place Jan. 13-15.

More event information appears below. A complete schedule will be published in January. King Day events at Bates are open to the public at no cost. For more information, please call 207-786-6400.

A college with a bold commitment to equality and social justice rooted in its very founding by abolitionists prior to the Civil War, Bates has long been distinctive in its observances of the King holiday. Regular classes are canceled and the entire campus turns its attention to issues around civil rights, social justice and King’s legacy.

The 2012 King Day events extend an emphasis on environmental justice at Bates during this academic year. For the King Day programming, “we chose this Unfinished Agenda theme because we believe that Dr. King would have been an advocate for environmental justice,” says Charles Nero, chair of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Planning Committee and professor of rhetoric and African American studies.

“The committee has worked really hard for almost a year to put this program together. We are especially happy that the workshops include much interdisciplinary effort.”

Professor and chair of urban and environmental policy and planning at Tufts University, Agyeman is known as the co-originator with Robert D. Bullard and Bob Evans of “just sustainabilities,” a concept espousing the need to ensure a better quality of life for all, now and into the future, in a just and equitable manner, while living within the limits of supporting ecosystems.

More about Julian Agyeman.

Agyeman speaks twice at Bates. In addition to Monday’s keynote, he offers the homily for the college’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Memorial Service of Worship at 7 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 15, in the Bates College Chapel, 275 College St. To learn more about this service, please call 207-786-8272.

Following the keynote, concurrent breakout sessions take place at 11 a.m. in rooms to be announced in Hedge Hall, 7 Andrews Road (Alumni Walk). Concurrent workshop sessions are scheduled for 2:30 and 3:45 p.m. in Pettengill Hall, 4 Andrews Road.

The breakout sessions and workshops have slightly different formats, Nero explains. “The breakouts provide an opportunity to reflect on the keynote address and to focus on and develop activist strategies based upon it.

“The workshops allow students, faculty, staff, alumni and community members to focus on more specific topics related to sustainability and justice.”

Spoken word dynamo Marc Bamuthi Joseph presents his latest full-evening work, Scourge, fusing hip-hop, spoken word, dance and live music. The Bates Dance Festival presents Bamuthi at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, July 28 and 29, in Schaeffer Theatre, 365 College St., Bates College. Tickets are $18/$12 (students and seniors) and may be purchased by calling 207-786-6161 after July 8. (This performance contains some strong language.)

In Scourge Bamuthi explores the narrow space between history, myth and speculation in a revolutionary look at the tragic history of his native Haiti. Breaking down the boundaries of racism and ignorance to reach a new kind of understanding, “Scourge” is a rich collaboration between Bamuthi, choreographers Rennie Harris and Adia Whitaker and director Kamilah Forbes. These artists, together with the voices and rhythms of three gifted musicians, create what Bamuthi calls “a theatrical exorcism.”

Bamuthi is a National Poetry Slam champion, 2003 GOLDIE award winner, former Stanford University Institute for Diversity in the Arts resident artist, Broadway veteran and a featured artist on the past two HBO seasons of Russell Simmons’ Def Poetry. His previous evening-length work, Word Becomes Flesh, was called “remarkable” by The New York Times and “extraordinary” by The Washington Post, and prompted The Seattle Times to name him their “Cutting Edge Performer of the Year” in 2003.

Bamuthi’s performance schedule has carried him from dance apprenticeships in Senegal and Cuba to teaching fellowships in Bosnia and Japan. During the next two years, he will develop new projects with Le Centre Nationale de Dance, the National Dance Project and the International Theater Institute, where his work will be performed in France, Zaire, Germany and the Philippines. His proudest collaboration has been with Youth Speaks, where he mentors 13- to 19-year-old writers and co-curates the Living Word Festival for Literary Arts.

In addition to main stage performances, the festival offers a selection of free and low-cost events. Complete information is available at the website.

At press time the Bates Dance Festival gratefully acknowledges support from the National Endowment for the Arts, New England Foundation for the Arts, National Performance Network, Maine Arts Commission, Surdna Foundation, Asian Cultural Council, Altria, Fisher Charitable Foundation, Sam L. Cohen Foundation, Androscoggin Bank, Cole Hahn, Liberty Mutual Insurance, Mechanics Savings Bank and TD Banknorth.