A third-generation New Yorker who grew up during the birth of hip-hop culture in a multiracial outer-borough neighborhood, Danny Hoch brings together his inner monologues, layered composites of stories and voices form his personal experiences, stories of his community and his generation, placing traditionally peripheral characters center stage. Characters like prison convicts Bronx and Andy; "gangsta thug"-wannabe white teenager Flip; correction officer with anger management problems Sam; Gabriel, a young man with a severe speech disorder due to his mother's drug addiction during pregnancy; Victor, a young man on permanent steel crutches because of police brutality; young Cuban student Peter; and successful rapper Emcee Enuff, all evidence this outstanding contemporary work, reunited under the title "Jails, Hospitals & Hip-Hop," here performed at Performance Space 122 in New York City. An urban griot for the communities of urban North America, Hoch combines hip-hop culture's worldview and expressive strategies of resistance along with storytelling riffs, actively exploring language in order to move the audience from passive entertainment to active engagement.

 Jails, Hospitals & Hip-Hop Program (6.76 MB)