Marcus John is a multi-disciplinary actor, writer, singer, dancer, rapper who focuses on spreading love through the various art forms and media.
Marcus John will be presenting his poem Insomnia, 4:18am centered on the struggles of a Black man trying to sleep in a world of chaos, "from COVID to Kobe" and the literal fight to cope.
ELEVATE:
Hi everyone, Christina D. Eskridge here. We are starting our year off right. Happy 2021 to you all, we are going to kick off with the Elevate Winter Series continuing with Part 3: Health of our Protest. We’re super excited this evening to have Marcus John one of our spoken word performers on the Elevate virtual stage, so we can do a little interview.
Hi Marcus, how are you?
Marcus:
Hello, hello I'm doing good.
Elevate:
Good, good. i’m so excited that we have you, I wanted to just ask, would you tell us a little bit about your work? And the type of work you do, and what motivates you?
Marcus:
Yeah I do a little bit of everything! Typically it's mostly Musical Theatre. I’ve been doing touring musicals for a few years now. I've done a few plays, i've done a few readings, so it's all theatre based but personally my own work. I’m a writer, I am a dancer, I am a singer, rapper, multi-hyphenate is what the kids call it these days. So I just do a little bit of everything. I just like to tell stories, that's what I do. And what motivates me is, I think my main purpose, my main purpose in my artistry is the spreading of love in everything. Whether it’s a musical with a script, that's what I'm looking for in the story in my character or definitely if it's my own personal thing. I’m just here to spread love to audiences you know and encourage people to do the same in their communities no matter what it is they’re doing. That’s me in a nutshell, that’s who I am.
ELEVATE:
That is fantastic. I love this idea of spreading love because you know that is exactly what Elevate is all about as well right. We’re trying to spread stories, spread health information
and make sure people are coming together as a community. You also mentioned that you do a lot of different art forms, i’m curious if you have a favourite or a passion? Even if it’s just for today.
Marcus:
It changes by the day. My favorite art form in general is Hip-Hop, in all its forms whether it be dance, rap, or what have you. Just anything under the umbrella hip-hop has always been my favorite throughout my entire life. I would say personally theatre is probably my all-time favorite of all the performing arts realms that i’ve been into because it combines music and storytelling and dance so well as opposed to just dance concerts, or just you know poetry slams or those types of things. But anywhere i can find a Hip-Hop piece whether it be a poem or a play whether it be hamilton or hip-hop nutcracker that’s what i’m looking for. That’s where I love rhythm and the rhyme that comes with that type of stuff. So that’s where I try to center my work.
ELEVATE:
That’s what’s up. That’s what’s up. I like it and I assume that we’re going to get a little bit of a flavour of that in the Elevate Winter Series on the 14th? Could you tell us a little bit about your piece and sort of what you want the audience to walk away from and how you came about creating what you’ve created?
Marcus:
Yeah so there's definitely a little bit of hip hop influence. I mean just because of who i am and my style of writing lends itself to a lot of rhymes and a lot of different rhyme schemes. This one’s different than usual in that I don't play with rhythm as much and I try not to make it too sing-songy. If that’s a good way to put it because i wanted the focus to be on the words as opposed to the rhythm and the melody but the piece itself is called insomnia 4:18am and it is literally just a look-in on a black man suffering from insomnia in 2020 or in really just modern day America. Right? Last year was what it was but it’s a ongoing thing, and the reason i wrote it was because I was literally unable to sleep at 4:18 in the morning and that seems to be generally when I get the best work done anyway. But this night in particular it was just a lot on my mind like I told you everything from Kobe to Covid, everything from Breonna Taylor to the election in November you know so many things impact us daily. And i just wanted to get it out as catharsis. It wasn’t meant to be a piece to be shared. I just needed to get these feelings and thoughts out so i could go to sleep but the reason i’m sharing it now and the reason i would love for audiences to hear and experience this piece is because i think it would just show the humanity of black men. Of myself, I can speak for myself and with all that’s gone on this year with all the things we’ve had to face you don’t know the full story of a person when you see them walking down the street, you know? But maybe with this you might understand a little bit more of what someone like me might have been going through last night. Or what someone like me might have been going through just earlier that day and hopefully it will then do what i always hope to do - it will encourage empathy understanding of someone who’s not like you and then of course in turn lead to love and lead to you loving someone else a little better because they might need it. Or loving yourself a little better because you understand that you’re not the only one going through it, you know? For the audience members who understand what i’m talking about and who have experienced it first hand.
So that in a nutshell is where the entire piece came from it was just something to get out. I think I couldn’t get to sleep I really, really just wanted to go to sleep but now it’s more about sharing and showing like “Hey this is what people are dealing with”, you know?
ELEVATE:
Absolutely, i think a lot of people have a lot of sleepless nights, black people in particular over the course of 2020, over the course of our lifetimes but also over the course of 2020 significantly. I’m so pleased and honored that you’re sharing it on the Elevate virtual stage. We’re really really excited to have you, we will get to know you a little bit more after your piece.
During the performance, during the show, so I won’t... we don’t want to give away too much more but we’re really pumped to have you on January 14th 8pm Eastern, 5pm Pacific
for Elevate Winter Series Part 3: Health of Our Protest. Marcus John thank you so much for being here, and for your artistry and the love that you’re spreading it’s an honor.
Marcus:
Yep. Thank you for the platform and thank you for, you know, uplifting all types of stories like this so that we can continue to do good work and spread love.
ELEVATE:
Let’s go. Let’s do this. 2021 let’s go.
