East Bay Community Foundation Commissions New Work by Lauded Oakland Performance Artist PDF Print E-mail
Marc Bamuthi Joseph’s Influence Grows


January 8, 2007, Oakland, California – As part of an unusual nationwide effort to create financial support among individuals for local arts and artists, The East Bay Community Foundation is co-commissioning a new work by the increasingly influential Oakland-based performance artist Marc Bamuthi Joseph.


The Foundation’s action is through its “East Bay Fund for Artists,” which encourages individuals in the East Bay to support commissioning of new art works. For every dollar an individual contributes to a selected new commission, the Foundation’s Fund provides a match. In the case of Bamuthi, the Foundation matched $10,000 from individual donors with $10,000 from the Fund to commission his new work known as “The Breaks,” a multi-media hip-hop theatre work incorporating cinema, contemporary movement and the spoken word. The Breaks will debut in the East Bay during 2007.


Co-commissioning the work is Youth Speaks (www.youthspeaks.org), a leading spoken-word arts organization based in San Francisco.


“Providing support for the arts is an important part of our role in creating vibrant communities in the East Bay,” said Karen Stevenson, President of the Foundation. “Valuing the arts means supporting the work of individual artists. We’re extremely pleased to be part of the commissioning of this new work by Bamuthi, whose growing acclaim should be a source of pride for all of us.”


The East Bay Community Foundation’s East Bay Fund for Artists was created in the summer of 2003 and is funded through “Leveraging Investments in Creativity,” a nationwide initiative of the Ford Foundation with grants from the James Irvine Foundation and from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The initiative is aimed at compensating for reductions in government funding of the arts. (For more information on the initiative, go toclass="seclink" href="http://www.lincnet.net/">http://www.lincnet.net )


Since its creation, the East Bay Fund for Artists has partnered with over 250 community donors and 19 community arts presenters to commission new works by 29 local artists. Using grants from Irvine, Hewlett and Ford, as well as the East Bay Community Foundation’s own donor contributions, East Bay Fund for Artists has leveraged over $400,000 in new financial support for the arts in the East Bay.


“What is both unusual and especially valuable about the East Bay Fund for Artists,” said Sam Miller, President of Leveraging Investments in Creativity, “is the way the East Bay Community Foundation is using it to build support for new art among individual citizens at the local level through its matching grants.”


Bamuthi is a hip-hop theatre artist, Broadway veteran, consistent winner of spoken word poetry awards and competitions, author of three stage works, and featured lecturer and performer at more than 100 colleges and universities, including University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University. Bamuthi also mentors young writers at Youth Speaks and curates its Living Word Festival for Literary Arts.


On December 6, he was named as one of 50 artists in America receiving the first group of fellowships from United States Artists (www.unitedstatesartists.org)), a new organization dedicated to providing direct support to artists across the nation.


His work has been called “electrifying” by The Houston Chronicle and “ever-elegant” by The Washington Post. The Seattle Times named him as their 2003 “cutting edge performer of the year.” He’s also been featured on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.”


“Through our efforts, we hope that art and the creative spirit will continue to thrive in the East Bay,” said Stevenson.