Hailed as the Bay Area’s most passionate and engaging spoken-word artist, Marc Bamuthi Joseph creates a remarkably elegant performance about race, gender, and parenthood from the point of view of a single father. Performed as a series of letters to his unborn son, Word Becomes Flesh is a fluid choreographed-poem which fully showcases the unique crossroads of searing politics, theology, poetry, photography, and riveting dance. Runs Feb. 2-4, 2006, 7:30 p.m. at the Museum of Contemporary Art, (312) 397-4010 or www.mcachicago.org. Marc Bamuthi Joseph is a National Poetry Slam champion, a featured artist on the past two seasons of Russell Simmons’ Presents Def Poetry on HBO, and a recipient of two National Performance Network commissions. He is the artistic director of Youth Speaks, a leading Bay Area literary arts organization, and curator of the annual Living Word Festival for Literary Arts.