peh-LO-tah

From San Francisco

Described by Brooklyn Academy of Music as an "electric meditation on the racial dimensions of the sport", per-LO-tah uses hip hop, samba, the spoken word and futbol-inspired choreography to explore the idea of promised freedom with the reality of racial inequality and, as it does, takes the audience from the 'pick-up' games of rural Haiti to some of the world's most well known World Cup stadiums in Rio de Janeiro and Johannesburg.

This is a production that pitches soccer as the sport everyone can unite through play, and criticizes those who exploit it and its players, for financial gain.

Marc Bamuthi Joseph is a spoken-word poet, dancer, and playwright whose works include Word Becomes Flesh, De/Cipher, and No Man's Land. He is also a director, choreographer, and speaker on TED. In 1999, he was a National Poetry Slam champion, and in 2006 he received the United States Artists Rockefeller Fellowship in 2006. His opera libretto We Shall Not Be Moved was named one of 2017's "Best Classical Music Performances" by the New York Times.