Soon after, Hackett, chair of the theater department, set about creating "Voices: The Dartmouth Theater Visiting Artist Program," which gives students interested in theater a chance to collaborate with successful artists of color.
This Fall term, "Voices," now in its second year, is hosting two artists-in-residence: the poetic theater ensemble Universes and renowned hip-hop artist Pop Master Fabel.
Each of these residencies works in conjunction with professor Patricia Herrera's Theater 10 class, "Voices: PerformActivism," which examines the ways in which theater raises social consciousness.
Universes and Pop Master Fabel will each give a public performance as well as a master class open only to students in PerformActivism and a small group of other students.
The master class provides a more intimate environment for the visiting artists to collaborate directly with students in preparation for the class's final project -- a performance that will showcase the students' work with theater and activism over the past term.
Steven Sapp and Mildred Ruiz of Universes completed their residency last week, while Pop Master Fabel arrived Tuesday of this week, and will conclude his stay at Dartmouth tomorrow.
Herrera explained her desire to introduce these artists to her students and wider campus community in an interview with The Dartmouth.
"Both Universes and Pop Master Fabel use hip-hop as an art form to revolutionize their community," Herrera said. "That's what's the most interesting to me."
Universes achieves this revolution by mixing a variety of genres and styles including poetry, spoken word, theater, jazz, hip-hop, down-home Blues, Spanish Boleros and beat-boxing.
Their creative product represents the manner in which the different cultures complement each other, and this way the group hopes to instill the values of inclusivity and tolerance through performance.
"Because Universes is able to fuse these different genres and still stay true to their own sound, they are able to reach a huge variety of audiences," Herrera explained.
Last week's demo-presentation by Sapp and Mildred, titled "Talking the Talk," consisted of short excerpts from several of Universes' plays.
Universes normally consists of four members, so Sapp and Mildred called upon the audience, composed largely of members of the PerformActivism class, to help create the background noises for each piece.
They responded by humming, playing imaginary air trumpets and thumping out beats on their bodies to provide percussion as the ensemble members sang political songs. Their entertaining lyrics told the troubling stories of racial tension.
"Everyone talks a talk," Mildred and Sapp explained at the beginning of their presentation. "The talk we talk is about community -- the people we know and encounter along the way."
Whereas Universes fuses genres, Fabel sticks to hip-hop, animating his music with Popping and Locking, frenetic dance forms that originated in the 1970s funk movement. Fabel's work incorporates his knowledge of hip-hop's cultural history and remixes it to communicate his social message.
"When people think of hip-hop," Herrera began, "they think of the music. But sometimes they forget about the other elements. There is a political history behind hip-hop, and Pop Master Fabel reminds us of the generations of grass-roots resistance in the history of the genre."
Fabel will explore hip-hop's political power in tonight's performance, "We Are One."
The program includes a slide presentation of the genre's history and Fabel's insight into how, despite their diverse elements, the different forms of hip-hop arose from the same social circumstances.
Herrera hopes Dartmouth students and community members will appreciate Fabel's eclectic performance.
"Lately, hip-hop is quickly becoming an important part of theater," she said. "But Fabel has been blurring these artistic genres since the 1980s."
Pop Master Fabel gives his free public presentation at 5:30 p.m. in Bentley Theater.
Theater 10: PerformActivism will give its final performance Wednesday, December 3, at 8 p.m., also in the Bentley.
