I just went to First Wave’s Tuesday night segment of their sixth annual Line Breaks Festival. First Wave is a UW Madison student organization that focuses on performing spoken word art and hip hop. 


The Line Breaks festival is an assembly of plays, poetry, and dance that are all free to attend. 


I had the chance to see the final performance of “Shock,” a play about the experience people of color have trying to reconcile their ethnic identities with white-dominated society.


The play’s performers collaboratively wrote the piece. “Shock” lacked the sheen of professionalism one expects from a show in the Overture. But at the end of the show the performers had a Q&A session with the audience and revealed that the bulk of the play had been written a week before.


It was astounding the show was as clean as it was and the performers as affecting as they were considering the unbelievable schedule they were facing. Every one of the performers was intimately attached to the material which focused their experiences as people of color in Madison.


Being a white person in the audience, it was hard for me not to feel defensive during some of the monologues that seemingly demonized the race. But, as a play about “shock,” it was appropriate. It was a strikingly honest depiction of an experience foreign to most caucasians. 


Performances are running every night this week through Saturday (March 25). For more information, go to the Line Breaks Website.