The founding father of hip-hop theatre, Danny Hoch, will be infiltrating Montreal with his show Taking Over during Just For Laughs. Hoch is an artist who paints political pictures with a blow torch – searing portraits from all sides of an issue where everyone gets burned. His show is a one-man tour de force where Hoch uses his chameleon-like ability to convey different voices to express his frustration about the gentrification of his Williamsburg, Brooklyn neighbourhood. The melting pot is boiling over with ethnic and economic tensions and Danny transforms into nine characters that cross the boundaries of race, age and gender, masterfully depicting a city in transition.

Danny was one of the first artists to bridge hip-hop and theatre. In 2000 he founded the Hip Hop Theatre Festival (Washington DC: July 7-12; NYC: Sept 23-Oct 11) which to this day breathes new life into theatre and hip-hop by nurturing the creation of innovative work within the hip-hop aesthetic; presenting and touring American and international artists whose work addresses the issues relevant to the hip-hop generation; and serving young, urban communities through outreach and education that celebrates contemporary language and culture.

Hoch is also a TV and film actor (White Boys, The Thin Red Line, Bamboozled) and most recently starred in We Own The Night as Louis “Jumbo” Falsetti alongside Joaquin Phoenix, Robert Duvall, Eva Mendes and Mark Wahlberg. His other plays (Pot Melting, Some People, and Jails, Hospitals & Hip-Hop) have toured nationally and internationally.

Check out some of his work:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTOf0Q61IX8 – Def Poetry Jam Performance
http://www.dannyhoch.com/pdf/TowardsAHip-HopAesthetic.pdf - Manifesto for the Hip Hop Arts Movement
Link to his website:
  www.dannyhoch.com
Link to Just For Laughs: http://www.hahaha.com/en/detail_spectacle/172/734/