Rafael Casal
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Rafael Casal (born August 8, 1985) is an American writer, performance poet, recording artist, educator, playwright and founding member of the group The Getback. Alongside Daveed Diggs, he stars in the indie film Blindspotting.
Writing[edit]
Casal started writing in the spoken word and slam youth poetry scene in Oakland and Berkeley at age 14. He participated in Brave New Voices national youth poetry slam until 17, when he was asked to participate only as a coach to other students. He was a national finalist champion for two years, and then coached the Bay Area youth poetry slam team to a first place at BNV nationals in Los Angeles. At 19 he traveled to New York to compete against established adult poets as an unknown at the renowned Nuyorican Poets Cafe slam night, and won. He was then featured on season 4, 5 and 6 of Russell Simmons' Def Poetry on HBO. Casal toured the university circuit following his television appearances, as well as at festivals and conferences.
He then joined Marc Bamuthi Joseph's theater company The Living Word Project, where he co-wrote The One Drop Rule–a theater piece about a hypothetical 40-day drought in the San Francisco Bay Area, drawing parallels to New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. The piece was written with his arts collective The Getback, in collaboration with tap-dancer Jason Samuels Smith, the San Francisco Jazz Ensemble, and directed by Marc Bamuthi Joseph. The One Drop Rule premiered in San Francisco, and was featured at the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans.
In 2009, Casal began teaching at the University of Wisconsin–Madison as creative director of an undergraduate diversity scholarship program called First Wave. There he began to develop his first solo show, titled The Limp under the direction of choreographer Chris Walker. The piece premiered and headlined at the university's annual theater festival Line Breaks, and in the fall of 2011 featured in excerpt at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts' Left Coast Leaning Festival. Casal was also published as a guest writer in Bill Ayers's The Handbook of Social Justice.
Music[edit]
Casal found his beginnings in music at the age of 15 years over the shoulder of local musicians and friends, picking up the basics of recording, delivery, content and structure. He released individual songs on CD around his high school, becoming known locally as a freestyle artist and lyricist. In 2006, he landed an apprenticeship with Bay Area legendary producer One Drop Scott (3x Crazy, Too Short, E-40, Keak da Sneak, Mac Dre, Scarface, etc.) There, Casal further developed his production and sound engineering techniques while learning to work with professional recording artists. After opening up a recording studio in North Oakland in 2007, Casal began an internship at Director George Lucas's notorious THX Studios/Skywalker Ranch. shortly after, Casal released his debut album in 2008 titled As Good As Your Word.[1] In 2010, he followed up with his second project Monster,[2] which earned him music placements on two MTV programs, one Showtime program, and his first profile on MTV.com. This project launched Casal into the YouTube music world with his viral video Bay Area Slang Top 100, which showcased Casal to over 500,000 viewers as he defined 100 Bay Area slang terms in three minutes over a sample from Dr. Suess's How The Grinch Stole Christmas. This song and others from the Monster LP were featured by major Music blogs like RapRadar, Southern Hospitality, The Smoking Section, Cocaineblunts and others. in 2011, he was declared a "Top 10 Bay Area Freshmen" by premiere Bay Area radio station 106.1 KMEL[3] and featured at the national annual music festival SXSW in Austin, Texas. In 2012, Casal released his third solo record titled Mean Ones.[4] All of his music projects feature producer Jay Fab of The Olympicks, as well as other featured producers and Casal's own compositions. Also in 2012, he contributed music and vocals to Daveed Diggs's album Small Things to a Giant, which he also edited. Casal was featured along with several other musicians on the song "Exquisite Corpse" from George Watsky's album x Infinity.
Education/artistic development[edit]
Casal began facilitating after-school writing workshops at 17, in High Schools around Oakland, CA. He joined the staff of Youth Speaks, a non-profit literary arts organization based in San Francisco, where he worked for six years as a programs associate and after-school writing mentor. When Casal began touring his own work on the university circuit, he paired his performances with creative writing workshops, open to students of the university, and the general public. These workshops often were also conducted at neighboring community centers, halfway houses, and juvenile detention centers.
In 2008, Casal became the Creative Director for the first university program exploring spoken word and Hip Hop theater, OMAI/First Wave at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Joining the small staff in the program's beginning stages, Casal helped design and implement the 4-year arts curriculum of the program alongside international choreographer Prof. Christopher Walker. For two years, Casal worked with the First Wave students in producing annual solo and ensemble theater productions, touring both nationally and internationally. Upon agreeing to help build this program, Casal negotiated a full tuition scholarship to the university as well, and discreetly attended the university as a full-time student while simultaneously overseeing his undergraduate students at The Office of Multicultural Arts Initiatives as Creative Director.
In Spring 2010 he graduated with a degree is sociology and became the OMAI artist-in-residence. In the program's fourth year, Casal worked with a smaller focused group of First Wave students, developing their crafts exploring the possibilities of the stage and directing their Spring productions. Since his arrival, the program received the prestigious Wisconsin Governors Arts Award, his students have presented at the New Amsterdam Theatre on Broadway, New York's 2009 Hip Hop Theatre Festival, and in his last year as AIR were highlighted at Contacting The World – an international arts presenting and collaboration festival in Manchester, England. In his time in Wisconsin, he directed and co-directed 19 theatre productions, with casts ranging from solo work to 15-member ensembles.
Casal currently lives in Los Angeles and contributes to the website Upworthy.
References[edit]
- ↑ "As Good As Your Word (2008), by Rafael Casal". Rafael Casal. Retrieved August 10, 2017.
- ↑ "The Monster LP (2009), by Rafael Casal". Rafael Casal. Retrieved August 10, 2017.
- ↑ "The Bay Area Freshmen 10 of 2011 – The Official List – The latest Bay Area rap and hip-hop music". Thizzler On The Roof. Retrieved August 10, 2017.
- ↑ "Mean Ones LP (2012), by Rafael Casal". Rafael Casal. Retrieved August 10, 2017.
External links[edit]
This article "Rafael Casal" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Rafael Casal. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
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