NEW YORK, NY.- Yerba Buena Center for the Arts announced that, after an extensive nationwide search, leading Bay Area performing artist, activist and educator, Marc Bamuthi Joseph, has been selected as YBCA’s director of performing arts. Since 1999, Joseph has been the founding program director and artistic director of Youth Speaks, Inc. in San Francisco, the leading nonprofit presenter of spoken-word education and youth development programs in the country. Joseph also developed the Living Word Project, Youth Speaks’ renowned resident theater program that centers on cutting-edge, verse-based work, and, in 2001, started the organization’s Living World Festival, which takes place annually in the Bay Area and features new co-commissioned performance works, live music and outreach activities. In addition, he is the co-founder of Life is Living, a national series of one-day festivals designed to activate under-resourced