Premiere of IMPACT performed by Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company

Friday, April 4 and Saturday, April 5, 7:30 pm; Friday, April 11, 7:30 pm and Saturday, April 12, 2 pm and 7:30 pm; Sunday, April 13, 5 pm

The nationally acclaimed model of youth arts and violence prevention organizations, Oakland-based Destiny Arts Center, celebrates its 25th anniversary with the world premiere of IMPACT. IMPACT is a movement/theater production created by the young artists of the Destiny Arts Youth Performance Company in collaboration with Artistic Directors Sarah Crowell and Rashidi Omari with Destiny Arts Center staff and alumni as well as acclaimed performing arts professionals, most notably Evelyn Thomas of the contemporary dance company, Nuba Dance Theater (http://www.nubadancetheater.org) and Amelia Rudolph of the aerial dance company, Bandaloop (http://www.bandaloop.org), both internationally recognized artistic directors and choreographers.

IMPACT is a full-length work featuring a cast of 42 talented youth ages 9 to 18 who perform a scintillating combination of hip-hop, modern and aerial dance, theater, spoken word, rap and song, accompanied by powerful video backdrop art. This year's 21st annual production takes you on a journey into the visionary minds of a generation of young people bombarded with a staggering amount of information that could either make them numb or spur them into action. This group has chosen to wake up and take a stand around issues that have powerful impact on themselves, their communities and their world - environmental destruction, unhealthy food and water, negative attitudes about their bodies, and violence of all kinds. The group takes on these intense social issues with appropriate seriousness, but also with a wildly sophisticated sense of humor. They tackle issues of low self-esteem in a scene called The Monster in the Mirror, issues of local and global poverty in a scene called Cultural Demise, and environmental issues in a scene called the Plastic Bag Vampire. The work will make you cry and it will also make you laugh.