When: Sunday, June 10, 2012
Where: Intiman Playhouse, Seattle Center, 201 Mercer Street  Seattle, WA 98109
Time:  7:30 pm
Admission: Free, all-ages.

Imagine the hip-hopping, spinning, flips, and flashy footwork of today's best break dancers, from the b-boys and b-girls on the street corners to MTV, to the hottest contemporary dance movies such as the Step Up series.  Where do those moves come from?  Under Seattle's NEXT 50 program, hip hop soul group Global Heat has been awarded a grant to collaborate with the world-renowned Massive Monkees and SoulShifters, award-winning African dancer-choreographer Etienne Cakpo (Gansango), and master of Brazilian Capoeira Mestre Curisco in a project called Back to the Future:  The Roots of Hip Hop in Ancient Cultures.   As part of the50th anniversary celebration of Seattle Center, theproject will illustrate through music, dance and spoken word performances the origins of hip hop styles in traditional cultures.

When people talk about the "birth" of hip hop, they often cite the culture of Jamaican DJs and "toasters", the forerunners of today's young rappers, and DJ Cool Herc and street dancers from the scene in the 1970"s Bronx, New York.  But the true roots of hip hop and much of contemporary dance culture are in African and Brazilian traditional cultural forms, as well as Asian martial arts.  That's what inspired Global Heat to pursue their NEXT 50 project.

Performers collaborating with Global Heat will join them in a premiere show June 10, 2012 (7:30 pm) at Seattle Center's recently rejuvenated Intiman Playhouse. Special guests appearing in the June 10 show will include Draze (aka Dumi Maraire, Jr) & Nya J "Zimbabwean classic griot and hip hop, Kama" an emcee from Kalamashaka, the top hip hop band in Kenya; Shanetta Brown "African dancer and vocalist from the Seattle-based band Tubaluba; AudioPoet" BeatBoxer extraordinaire; Yaw Amponsah "a master percussionist from Ghana; and Mamady Masare "a flutist from Guinea's Les Ballets Africains.  The June 10 show will be hosted by local hip hop favorite Suntonio Bandanaz, and is a free show for all-ages funded by NEXT 50 with promotional support from African Music Nites, Laserquick Printing, and Seattle Night Out.