The Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives (OMAI) will host the 15th annual Line Breaks Hip Hop Theater Festival in person on Friday-Saturday, April 1-2 at the Overture Center for the Arts in a multi-day showcase bridging campus, local, and national leaders in Hip Hop and urban arts.
OMAI’s Line Breaks Hip Hop Theater Festival consists of performances, lectures, and discussions by First Wave students and invited professional artists engaging with the Madison community, on and off-campus. Inaugurated through OMAI’s sponsored Marc Bamuthi Joseph Arts Institute Residency in the spring of 2007, the Line Breaks project culminated in a final performance of student work called “Just Bust!” – an event, which has evolved into our monthly open mic, now running for 15 years.
Line Breaks is now one of the largest Hip Hop-centered performance festivals in the Midwest and continues to be a space for the cultivation and presentation of independent and collaborative work by First Wave artist-scholars. This year’s Line Breaks will feature world-renowned First Wave alum, Erika Dickerson-Despenza and Danez Smith, as well as current First Wave scholars, according to a press release from OMAI, and evening showcases will take place at the Overture Center for the Arts.
The full schedule of events can be found here along with performance descriptions, artist bios, and the previous Line Breaks works. All events are free, all ages, and open to the public.
