The Andy Warhol Museum's trendy "Off the Wall" series began in darkness Saturday, with spoken-word artist Marc Bamuthi Joseph intoning, "The future aesthetic ... the future's not static."

But this engaging wordsmith, certainly one of the more mainstream presentations on this "Wall," would go on to play with vocabulary and then to prime, rhyme and build his ideas in intoxicating layers to form "The Spoken Word." Joseph expertly skipped through an hourlong program that drew from the enormous range of his collected material, a "best of the rest" concept that interspersed topics such as politics, education, racism and history.

Often poetry in motion as he incorporated tap, modern dance and hip-hop in and around the text, Joseph began on a comfortable plane by connecting with an early teaching stint, demonstrating how the spoken word can enhance a literary experience, even in classic novels like "The Great Gatsby."

He used warmth and wit to capture viewers in an audience participation section, then moved on to more complex areas of his life continuum. A segment from Joseph's latest work, "Scourge," includes an eerie voodoo-esque piece that celebrates its own blackness, and a pair of poems, one embracing and the other piercing, in honor of the Rev. Martin Luther King.

His finish returned to biographical sources, first with a delicious tap-speak number -- remarkably executed full-out, with no shortness of breath -- then a winsome tale from "Word Became Flesh," relating the birth of his son, and ending in the suitably bright spirit of a funky finale.

-- Jane Vranish, Post-Gazette dance critic

UMOJA takes a holiday

The spirit of Kwanzaa may have been stretched beyond its normal December framework with the premiere of UMOJA African Arts Company's "Kikombe Cha Umoja" this past Friday and Saturday, but the timing was still perfect. Poised instead on the cusp of Martin Luther King's birthday, the company joined forces with poet Christina Springer, Xpressions Dance Company, actress and narrator Tracey Turner and celebrated local storyteller Temujin Ekunfeo to design a theatrical production that revolved around the rich cultural values established by founder Dr. Maulana Karenga, who flew in from California to view one of the performances and participate in a related workshop.

The structured format at the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater in East Liberty helped to harness the free-flowing improvisatory style that usually dominates UMOJA's performances. Springer's "Kikombe Cha Umoja," "unity cup" in Swahili, followed the story of a family determined to discover the origin of the cup used in the family's celebration. The children were magically whisked back to the African village of its origin, and they tapped the seven Kwanzaa principles to restore the balance that had been disrupted when the cup was stolen.

Although the staging was sporadically weak and sometimes confusing, this handsome production boasted a host of colorful costumes put to good use in choreography by UMOJA's Kadiatour Conte Forte and Xpressions' Staycee Walters and often accompanied by UMOJA's thundering drum ensemble. However, a few problems still remained in coordinating crisp endings between the music and dance.

Turner provided a commanding dramatic flow of words, with Temujin's story-within-a-story a mesmerizing high point.

-- Jane Vranish, Post-Gazette dance critic