Beat Box Bard

Q&A with Director Bruce Levitt

Q: What was it like adapting Shakespeare's classic work to contemporary form?
A:We really haven't adapted Shakespeare to a contemporary form. We've "remixed" Shakespeare, maintaining original lines and vocabulary and placed them in different contexts--much as hip hop does with contemporary music. the original idea behind Beat Box Bard was to see if we could take the rich text of Shakespeare and combine it with Adam Matt's exquisite talent as a musician and Beat Boxer and come up with a unique combination that evoke3d the original classical form within the framework of contemporary rhythms.

Q: How did students contribute to the development of the piece?
A:I created a class that meet for the entire Fall 06 semester. We looked at all the topics that Shakespeare includes in his plays and sonnets: love, war, murder, gender, power, innocence, lust, theatre, etc--and some of the techniques and devices he uses--magic, poetry, dance, song, ritual--and then choose a subject or theme and gathered all the lines we could find that went along with that idea. Students brought it collections of quotes or some re-arranged quotes that shaped a moment. Students, along with one of our professional actors in residence--an accomplished musician-- also wrote music for several
of the songs from Shakespeare's plays. I would write pieces and bring them into the class for us to try out and discuss. What resulted is a script that is now in it's sixth draft, with many pieces written and discarded along the way. The students also discussed and contributed to the design process for the piece as well as advising on the casting of the remaining actors.

Q: In your opinion, what does the well-known beatboxer Adam Matta bring to the production?
A: Adam Matta brings a unique perspective to just about everything. He is wildly talented and extremely bright. He really inspired me to work to find something we could do together that would be challenging and exciting. It was because of his abilities that I came up with the idea of combining Beat Boxing with Shakespeare. Only someone of Adam's talent and intelligence could help pull this off. But beyond coaching and designing the beat boxing for the show, and suggesting various themes and ideas, Adam brings a wonderful energy and generosity of spirit to the entire process.

Q: What is the goal of Beat Box Bard?
A: To entertain and to perhaps introduce Shakespeare in a new way to a contemporary audience.

Program Notes

The Beat – A History of Beatboxing

Beatboxing is the art of vocal percussion: creating beats, rhythms, simulated sounds, melodies, and basslines with the lips, tongue, teeth, throat, and voice. Following a long tradition of grassroots/urban music forms, the roots of beatboxing can be traced to several kinds of vocal experimentation, including: scatting, the jazz form in which a singer improvises scales over instrumentals; rhythm techniques performed by early a capella black barbershop quartets – such as clicking the tongue to imitate a snare sound; and wailing by blues singers to replace the solo sounds of brass instruments not available to them. Sound substitution was also a motivating factor for the first beatboxers. The term “beat box” originally referred to a programmable drum machine that accompanied rappers with beats. These machines were too expensive (and too cumbersome) for street rappers, so street rappers supplied a beat for each other by using their mouth to imitate the drum machine.

The art form officially made its move from the street to the studio in the early 1980’s when three vocal artists: Darren “Buffy the Human Beat Box” Robinson, Doug E. Fresh, and Biz Markie each gained recognition among the hip hop community for beatboxing. In 1983, “Buffy” Robinson participated in a contest at Radio City Music Hall with rappers Mark “Princie Markie Dee” Morales and Damon “Kool-Rock Ski” Wimbley (together known as the Fat Boys). Though the trio did not obtain the first place prize of a record contract, their achievement of second place helped to popularize beatboxing. Doug E. Fresh, who claims he invented beatboxing in 1980, also made headway in 1983, by beatboxing on a Spotlight single release with Spoonie Gee and DJ Spivey. Further releases of the Fat Boys “Stick Em” in 1984, and Fresh’s “La Di Da Di” (with Slick Rick) helped to secure a place for beatboxing in the hip hop community through the eighties. Biz Markie further bolstered the vocal art when he came on the scene in 1985, beatboxing for Roxanne Shante at age fourteen. Three years later, he released his debut album, “Goin’ Off,” which featured the hit single “Make the Music with Your Mouth, Biz.”

Because beatboxing was viewed as a “sideshow” to hip hop (e.g. beatboxers made beats for rappers initially or performed with them as a side act), the popularity of the form started to shrivel in the 1990s. It was revived when the self-proclaimed “Godfather of Noyze,” Rahzel released his solo album in 1999 entitled “Make the Music 2000” – a tribute to Biz. The album featured Rahzel’s most groundbreaking track, a rendition of Aliyah’s “If Your Mother Only Knew…” where Rahzel beatboxed the beat and sang the chorus at the same time. Also included was the renowned man v. machine battle between, in one corner, beatboxers Rahzel and Kenny “The Human Orchestra” Muhammad, and in the other corner turntablists DJ Skribble and DJ Slinky. The recognition Rahzel gained for the innovations accomplished on the album as well as the attendance at his solo concerts helped the industry realize the value of beatboxing to hip hop.

Aside from Muhammed and Rahzel, other prominent U.S. beatboxers include: Philadelphia’s Scratch, beatboxer for the Roots; Click Tha Supah Latin, a LA MC and beatboxer; Butterscotch, a vocal artist from Sacramento who won the first international Female Beatbox Champion Title in 2005; Each, a key organizer with the Vowel Movement in California; Akim Funk Buddha, a New York City artist who pursues beatboxing across a wide spectrum of cultural music; Baba Israel, also a New Yorker, who formed his own hip hop production company Open Thought Productions, and Kid Lucky, who was the feature performer on one of the first beatboxing DVD’s to be released internationally. Kid Lucky also created the production company that released the DVD, Beatboxer Entertainment, which operates as an agency for beatboxers in North America. Through Beatboxer Entertainment, Kid Lucky produced the premier of Nu Voices, an ensemble of beatboxers who performed together at the Nuyorican Poets Café. This group featured, among others, Beat Box Bard artist-in-residence Adam Matta.

- Special thanks to Adam Matta for his source material for this section.

The Box – The Human Element

In the fall of 2005, Professor Bruce Levitt met with beatboxer Adam Matta over coffee to discuss the possibility of combining beatboxing and Shakespeare. Professor Levitt took out a book of sonnets and started to read while Matta improvised beats. The two knew immediately that it was a combination burgeoning with possibility. Professor Levitt and Adam Matta continued to collaborate over the following year. In Matta’s own words, the idea for the production became a “REMIX of Shakespearean plays.”

Creation of the project continued when Professor Levitt offered a course entitled “Beat Box Bard” in the fall of 2006. In the class, students and Schwartz Center RPTAs practiced beatboxing, breakdancing, music, and especially script creation. Much of the script for the Schwartz Center production of Beat Box Bard was derived from processes pursued by the class. Professor Levitt would propose a particular subject prevalent in several of Shakespeare’s works– like cross-dressing, or love – and students brought in material (sonnets, scenes, and monologues) from Shakespeare that addressed the subject. Professor Levitt then assembled this material, along with the songs composed by various members of the class, into the script for Beat Box Bard.

Student Ellen Hada, who graduated from Cornell in December 2006, explained her experience creating the script as follows:

“Initially we geared away from the clichè contrasts between urban and classical feels, not wanting this to be just another "modern take" on Shakespeare. Every line in the play flows like a song - rhythm and beat and tone - and that music undulates with the young urban generation. We are not attempting to have the audience "understand" Shakespeare; nor are we attempting to state that Shakespearian language is a minor player within the piece - we are attempting to illuminate Shakespeare.”

RPTA Tom Demenkoff, who was also a participant in the class, explains his own process writing many of the songs in the performance:
On The Music:
“As a musician, I approached composing this particular score with a spirit of eclecticism, based on the depth and variety of the themes we were asked to visit. With the dominant musical root of beatboxing supporting the entire piece, I began with familiar forms: pop, folk, reggae, rap, rock and even Celtic music, to craft the shapes and colors for the text I was reading and hearing in the workshop. As the beatboxing artists came into the mix, the songs transformed and emerged differently than I had ever imagined them. That's Beat Box Bard!”

On The Lyrics:
“The text used for the lyrics of the songs came from two directions. Some text was already written by Shakespeare to be "songs", and so the original music written to bring those songs into the world of Beat Box Bard became one task. Some songs, however, are completely new and original creations musically and lyrically. In these instances, the theme, or ultimate use of the song within the play was the first thing to be defined. Then the hunt for the appropriate lyric content and rhymes sent me through the complete works of Shakespeare to arrive at the perfect words for what the song needed to say – using only Shakespeare's words. The melody and texture of the music either followed the lyric or led the way - depending on how the theme served the inspiration for the song.”

The Bard – An Etymology of “Bard”

While some contend that the word is a loanword from Proto-Celtic *bardos, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gwerh2: "to raise the voice; praise", it is actually from the lesser-known Latin 'bardare', meaning "to wear breeches". Bards are often seen wearing breeches and, to a lesser extent, funny hats. The first recorded example is in 1449 from the Scottish Gaelic language into Lowland Scots, denoting an itinerant musician, usually with a contemptuous connotation. A Scots ordnance of ca. 1500 orders that "All vagabundis, fulis, bardis, scudlaris, and siclike idill pepill, sall be brint on the cheek." The word subsequently entered the English language via Scottish English.

Secondly, in medieval Welsh and Gaelic society, a bard (Scottish or Irish Gaelic bard, Welsh bardd) was a professional poet, employed to compose eulogies for his lord (see planxty) and, by proximity to one wearing such ridiculous clothing, seem less goofy by comparison. If the employer failed to pay the proper amount, the bard would then compose a satire. If the satire failed to produce the desired results, he might sing the "Symphony of Misfortune" or "Aria of Bad Tidings" to bring sorrows upon his employer. (c. f. fili, fáith). In other European societies, the same function was fulfilled by skalds, rhapsodes, minstrels, etc.

Bards were those who sang the songs recalling the tribal warriors' deeds of bravery as well as the genealogies and family histories of the ruling strata among Celtic societies….During the era of Romanticism, when knowledge of Celtic culture was overlaid by legends and fictions, the word was reintroduced into the West Germanic languages, this time directly into the English language, in the sense of "lyric poet", idealised by writers such as the Scottish romantic novelist Sir Walter Scott. The word was taken from Latin bardus, Greek bardos, in turn loanwords from the Gaulish language, describing a class of Celtic priest (c. f. druid, vates). From this romantic use came the epitheton The Bard, applied to William Shakespeare and Robert Burns, though it should not be thought of as coincidence that both wore breeches.

- This etymology is taken directly from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bard .
“I love Shakespeare.” - Tupac Shakur