The Chicano Messengers of Spoken Word
"Fear of a Brown Planet”
Written by Paul S. Flores, Amalia Ortiz and Marc David Pinate
Developed and Directed by Tony Garcia
The Chicano Messengers of Spoken Word (CMSW)— Paul S. Flores, Amalia Ortiz and Marc David Pinate—initiated and began performing around the country in the fall of 2003 as a performance project in association with Su Teatro (Denver, CO), Xicanindio Artes (Mesa, AZ), MECA-Houston, and the National Performance Network.
To broaden the idea that poetry is only for romantics, misfits and coffee shop revolutionaries, CMSW took poetry out of the cafés and put them in theaters, adding a DJ, Hip Hop beats, rhythm, and challenging audiences to follow a quick pace language while presenting original poetry told in a contemporary voice about the Chicano and Native experience.
Inheritors of the Chicano art movement and the Chicano literary tradition of the late 60s and 70s that produced such boundary-pushing writers as Alurista and José Montoya; and later in the 80s and 90s Sandra Cisneros and Anna Castillo, CMSW came to represent a new voice and a new generation of poet-performers whose aesthetic, language, and themes reflected a slick, urban, and more Pan-Latino feel.
The Chicano Messengers of Spoken Word co-authored the play Fear of a Brown Planet and premiered it in 2005 in San Francisco then touring four cities nationwide. Developed and directed by Tony Garcia, Fear of a Brown Planet is the story of three Chicano characters— a stubborn construction worker, a grassroots labor party lawyer, and a socialite trophy wife—who find themselves in an internment camp with no memory of how they arrived. Fear of a Brown Planet was adapted as a browning of Jean-Paul Sartre’s play NO EXIT, as a journey into the dark prison of the mind.
About The Chicano Messengers of Spoken Word
Paul S. Flores is one of the most influential Latino performance artists in the country and a nationally respected youth arts educator. He creates plays, oral narratives, and spoken word works about transnationality and citizenship that spur and supports societal movements that lead to change. Flores' work has played all across the United States and internationally in Cuba, Mexico, and El Salvador. His commissions have come from the California Arts Council, Creative Capital, La Peña Cultural Center, MACLA, MAP Fund, National Association of Latino Arts and Culture, National Performance Network Creation Fund, National Endowment for the Arts, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, the San Francisco Arts Commission, the San Francisco International Arts Festival, and the Yerba Buena Arts Center among many others. Flores is also known for playing professional baseball for the Chicago Cubs before moving to San Francisco and becoming co-founder of the Latino poetry performance group Los Delicados, co-founder of Youth Speaks/Brave New Voices: National Teen Poetry Slam, an HBO Def Poetry Slam poet, a PEN award-winning novelist, and a 2015 Doris Duke Artist.
Amalia Ortiz is a Tejana actor/writer/activist who featured on three seasons of Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry on HBO. Ortiz is a National Poetry Slam Finalist, a recipient of an NAACP Image Awards, a CantoMundo Fellow, a Hedgebrook Writer-In-Residence alumna, awardee of the 2002 Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral Foundation Award, and a NALAC Artists grantee. Her debut book of poetry, Rant. Chant. Chisme. (Wings Press, 2015), was selected by NBC News as one of the “10 Great Latino Books of 2015.” Her poem "These Hands Which Have Never Picked Cotton" was nominated for the 2012 Pushcart Prize. Her latest book The Canción Cannibal Cabaret & Other Songs was published in 2019 by Aztlan Libre Press. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Texas Río Grande Valley.
Marc David Pinate is a theatre artist, musician and educator, and a National Slam Poetry Champion. His acting career includes work with Teatro Visión, Shadowlight Productions, Su Teatro, Campo Santo, and the Magic Theatre. As a Director he has worked with El Teatro Campesino, Stanford University, Steppenwolf, the American Theatre Company in Chicago, and Arizona Theatre Company. A recipient of a three-year directing residency funded by the Doris Duke Foundation at La Peña Cultural Center in Berkeley, California. During his residency he founded the Hybrid Performance Experiment (The HyPE) known for their guerrilla theatre performances on Bay Area Rapid Transit trains and mall food courts. He fronted the spoken word and music band Grito Serpentino. Marc was a program director at Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana, in San Jose, California and the historic, Galería de la Raza, in San Francisco. He’s taught acting at San Jose State University’s department of Television, Radio, Film and Theatre. In June 2013, he completed an MFA in Directing from The Theatre School at DePaul University in Chicago.