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Over two decades ago, Steven Sapp and a group of friends were active in the poetry scene in South Bronx. Like many poets, Sapp took to the stage for poetry readings. Though he enjoyed the open-mic forum, he wanted more out of the experience than standing up to recite a poem and sitting back down. He wanted to engage with the audience through movement and singing. He wanted to bring the voice of those without a voice to the stage. His desire for something bigger than the scene he had thrived in led Sapp to form UNIVERSES.
A performance group that has received national and international acclaim, UNIVERSES comprises four core members often accompanied by rotating guest artists.
"Our work has a tinge of activism and art together," Sapp said in a phone interview. "We feel like if you're holding a theater hostage for two hours and people are listening to you and you're saying something, say something. Especially where we are from, we have to say something."
UNIVERSES has expanded beyond poetry to writing musicals, including "Ameriville," a production that uses Hurricane Katrina to examine a fractured American landscape. "Ameriville" is one of three major works UNIVERSES has written, produced, choreographed and performed together.
The company visits the University of Utah, where Sapp and UNIVERSES members Mildred Ruiz-Sapp, Gamal Chastan and William Ruiz (aka Ninja) will work with students as part of a visiting artists program. On Saturday, the group performs "Live From the Edge," a best-of experience that will track its 20-year evolution of poetic language from childhood rhymes and community rituals to poetry, theater, hip-hop and gospel.
Steven Sapp talked to The Tribune about the evolution of UNIVERSES and using performance to share important messages.
The UNIVERSES writing process
It never is the same, which I am very proud of. Sometimes somebody will write something and bring it in and we will hear it and respond to it either by writing something in response to it or we may create a song around what they wrote. It really could go either way depending on what we are feeling and what tone we want to have. Each one of us has individual ways that we work. Gamal listens to music to get inspired; I write constantly. For the group, it could literally be almost anything. You could have a newspaper in the room, somebody reads aloud from it and we could make a 20-minute piece out of one line in the newspaper.
Poetry and beyond
What we're bringing [to Salt Lake] is what we would be doing in a poetry reading. It's just on a bigger stage. But we're going back to our roots. Poetry reading is just us being free. What we would do in a poetry house we have been doing in tandem with our theater career. Anything that we have been working on in our theater pieces, we'll bring it to a poetry spot to hear what the pieces sound like before we take it into a theater. Poetry houses, open mics, us in front of microphones, poetry, music and dancing, cracking jokes; that's our foundation — that's where we come from. The lights will come on and there will be four microphones and us. We are going to take you on a journey for an hour and a half — that's who we are. Our show and who we are as a company has expanded over the years out of that poetry group because of opportunities and things that have happened. But, at heart, we're still that poetry group. There's been many a night where we will do a show at night and then we go to a poetry spot right after our show and do a 45-minute set. It's fun and that keeps us in shape.
Inspiring UNIVERSES
There is Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Willie Perdomo, Nina Simone, Prince, Michael Jackson, Wu Tang Clan. That's our foundation. That's who we have grown up listening to. Our foundation is old soul music, blues, old show tunes, Negro spirituals. It's all of that stuff that we have grown up around. I am old enough to remember the birth of hip-hop and I grew up in South Bronx where it was born, so I saw it from the beginning. That's in our DNA of who we are as a theater company: a new model theater company. It's taken theater a long time to catch up to what we are doing and accept it as legitimate theater.
The Utah audience experience
The evening is built up of musical pieces and poems from our canons. Not only is it political, but it's funny. There's a lot of singing and movement. We are a little bit more playful and open in that type of setting, but it will be tinged with political undertones and things like that. I really hope that people have an open mind. You're hearing stories and voices and songs from people you may not know. You hope that people can connect to the human condition of people. Maybe we're bringing some voices of some folks you don't know or some images and folks that you thought you knew what they were about but you didn't really know too much of it. So, when you see acts of Black Lives Matter and people revolting, you'll understand that's slightly where it comes from — who people are. It's dialogue and conversation and reading and getting to know folk — and trusting people. We hopefully will meet people from Utah and talk. Art can do that. —
UNIVERSES' 20th anniversary with 'Live From the Edge'
UtahPresents, in partnership with the University of Utah theater department, brings international ensemble UNIVERSES to campus for a theatrical performance fusing poetry, theater, jazz, hip-hop, politics, down-home blues and even Spanish boleros.
When • Saturday, Dec. 5, 7:30 p.m.
Where • Kingsbury Hall, 1395 Presidents Circle, Salt Lake City
Tickets • $20, $5 for U. students, $10 for non-U. students and youth 18 and younger; 801-581-7100 or utahpresents.org