WMU HOME > ABOUT WMU > WMU NEWS Hip-Hop Theatre comes to Dalton Center Sept. 29, 2004 KALAMAZOO--Will Power, an accomplished playwright, actor and educator, and Daniel Banks, a hip-hop theatre festival director, visit Western Michigan University Friday and Saturday, Oct. 1-2. Power and Banks will present a free public lecture-demo titled "Hip-Hop Theatre: Routes and Branches" at 5 p.m. Friday in the Dalton Center Recital Hall. They also will present private seminars for WMU and Kalamazoo College theatre majors and high school students during their stay. Power has created his own style of theatrical communication, fusing original music, rhymed language and dynamic choreography to produce innovative works. He has appeared on "Last Call with Carson Daly" and on HBO with Russell Simmons' "Def Poetry Jam." Banks is education director of the New York City Hip-Hop Theatre Festival and instructor of theatre studies in NYU's Department of Drama. He has directed numerous off-Broadway shows. Banks and Power were brought to Kalamazoo through WMU's Visiting Scholars and Artists Program. Their visit also is sponsored by Kalamazoo College, the Northside Ministerial Alliance in Kalamazoo and several WMU departments and programs. Media contact: Patrick Donnelly, 269 387-6222, patrick.donnelly@wmich.edu WMU News Office of University Relations Western Michigan University 1903 W Michigan Ave Kalamazoo MI 49008-5433 USA 269 387-8400 www.wmich.edu/wmu/news