(Interior Investigations, Kamloops, May '06. Photo: Ashok Mathur.)

"We are looking for the pedagogical arts of the contact zone. These will include, we are sure, exercises in storytelling and in identifying with the ideas, interests, histories, and attitudes of others; experiments in transculturation and collaborative work and in the arts of critique, parody, and comparison (including unseemly comparisons between elite and vernacular cultural forms); the redemption of the oral; ways for people to engage with suppressed aspects of history (including their own histories), ways to move into and out of rhetorics of authenticity; ground rules for communication across lines of difference and hierarchy that go beyond politeness but maintain mutual respect; a systematic approach to the all-important concept of cultural mediation." -- Mary Louise Pratt, "Arts of the Contact Zone"

Because the written word is the sixth element of hip-hop...

The Contact Zone Crew is Wayde Compton and Jason de Couto's turntable poetry project. Genetically representing three continents on four Technics 1200s, The Contact Zone Crew performs live mixes of original dub plate poetry with crate-dug hip hop, jazz, and spoken word vinyl. A performance history was recently published in Event 32.1 (Spring 2003). To read an essay on the project, go to Horizon Zero; when there, click "view this article in flash" to hear an audio file of "The Reinventing Wheel: Rolling Wave Mix."