REPRESENTA! Bilingual Theatre for the Hip-Hop Generation

Paul S. Flores is a performance artist, published poet, playwright, and well known spoken word artist. He was raised in Chula Vista, CA and spent much of his youth in Tijuana, Mexico. He co-founded the Latino poetry performance group Los Delicados with Norman Zelaya and Darren de Leon. He also wrote the PEN Award winning novel "Along the border lies", and his spoken word poem "Brown Dreams" was featured on Def Poetry on HBO. Flores work explores the intersection of urban culture, Hip-Hop and transnational identity, using theatre as a tool to talk about communities divided by police violence, racism, gentrification and economic disparity. He has been named The San Francisco Weekly's 2011 Best Politically Active Hip-Hop Performance Artist and has toured extensively with his works

REPRESENTA! is a performance telling the parallel story of Julio, a Cuban rapper, and Paul, a Chicano poet from San Francisco, both revolutionaries in different senses of the word. Paul tries to connect with his political views by traveling to La Habana and supporting his idea of revolution. Conversely, Julio, who grew up during Cuba's revolution, attempts to achieve success in Hip-Hop, a cultural import of the United States. Both become friends and decide to travel to New York City together, but when the terrorist attacks of 9/11 happen their plans drastically change. The renewed xenophobia and racism erodes both characters' dreams, as they realize neither had a complete understanding of the other. As one character notes, "He had his view of things and I got mine, we were both wrong." In this performance, two sides of Cuban and North American relationality are constantly challenged, as both characters reflect on the meaning of representar (to represent), a term each uses to express his identity and rootedness in Latino cultural and artistic diasporas