In celebration of the 50th anniversary of Hip Hop, internationally acclaimed Hip Hop performer/creator and alumnus Dahlak Brathwaite (B.A., English and theatre and dance, ’08) returns to UC Davis for a five-week workshop of select scenes and songs from a new Hip Hop musical Smooth Criminal. The project will culminate with free public performances March 7, 8 and 9 at the Wyatt Pavilion Theatre and begin at 7 p.m.

Featuring book and lyrics by Aaron Jafferis and music by Dahlak Brathwaite and Daniel Bernard Roumain, Smooth Criminal is a music-theatre work about Aaron, a nerdy white guy desperate to liberate his people – as soon as he can figure out who they are. Five actors and a musician try to undo Aaron’s family’s twisted relationship with race and money, but his family has other plans.

Based on Jafferis’ almost-entirely-true-but-don’t-fact-check-with-his-parents life story, Smooth Criminal bumps and grinds Aaron’s race and class issues with the audience’s, using poetic and movement prompts built into the show to tickle the audience’s stories open.

Brathwaite was launched into the national spoken word scene when he appeared in the last two seasons of HBO’s Russell Simmons’ presents Def Poetry Jam. His performances blend Hip Hop, theatre, and spoken word and have been presented at over 100 universities throughout the United States and Europe as well as at SXSW, Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Smithsonian, Ars Nova, The Apollo, and Off-Broadway. 

Jafferis is a playwright and lyricist whose works Activist Songbook, The Ones, (Be)longing, Trigger, Stuck Elevator and Kingdom have been produced or presented by The Old Globe, American Conservatory Theater, Nashville Opera, Long Wharf Theatre, Collective Consciousness, Bregamos and many others. Honors include a Creative Capital Award, Richard Rodgers Award, Sundance Institute/Time Warner Fellowship, NEA Art Works Grant, NEFA National Theatre Project Grant, San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award, Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award, and multiple MacDowell Fellowships.

Roumain (DBR) is a Black, Haitian-American composer who sees composing as collaboration with artists, organizations and communities within the farming and framing of ideas. “About as omnivorous as a contemporary artist gets” (The New York Times), Roumain has worked with artists from J’Nai Bridges, Lady Gaga and Philip Glass to Bill T. Jones, Marin Alsop and Anna Deavere Smith. Known for his signature violin sounds infused with myriad electronic and African-American music influences, Roumain  is a composer of solo, chamber, orchestral, and operatic works, and has composed an array of film, theater, and dance scores. He has composed music for the film Ailey (Sundance official selection); was the music director and principal composer with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company; released and appeared on 30 album recordings; and has published over 300 works. He has appeared on CBS, ESPN, FOX, NBC, NPR, and PBS; and has collaborated with the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Kennedy Center, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Sydney Opera House.

The Department of Theatre and Dance is part of the UC Davis College of Letters and Science. For information about other department productions, visit theatredance.ucdavis.edu.