Tales in rhythm and rhyme

At the stage’s center, a circle has been drawn with sand. It’s a sacred circle, a story circle. In an upstage corner stands a DJ station, turntables at the ready.

With these, a mood is set -- a story begins -- even before rapper and actor Will Power arrives onstage to launch into “Flow,” the intriguing fusion of rhythm and rhyme, hip-hop and theater that he performs to the accompaniment of DJ Moni’s live soundscape. Subtly yet powerfully, the circle and the DJ station evoke what will become one of the performance’s central themes: the ancient and the of-the-moment, coexisting.

Presented through Sunday as part of UCLA Live’s International Theatre Festival, “Flow” has been creating a buzz from San Francisco, where Will Power (as William Wylie calls himself) grew up, to New York, where performances helped spark lively discussion about hip-hop’s emergence in the theater. Built of the propulsive musical language of rap, the show -- developed with and directed by Danny Hoch, another innovator in the field -- very much captures this moment in time. Yet the 80-minute story, which evokes a neighborhood and its residents all in the person of one performer, isn’t terribly different from the monologue work of Eric Bogosian, Lily Tomlin or John Leguizamo. As, indeed, those performers aren’t terribly different from storytellers before them, stretching back through history.

And there we have the essence of what “Flow” is about: the storyteller and his or her essential position in society, as a sustainer of tradition and an innovator of culture -- or, as Will Power puts it, as someone whose purpose is: “To sing the songs / And right the wrongs / And carry on, on and on.”

The performer is a lean, graceful man in his mid-30s whose hair is braided into curving cornrows. He is liable to arrive onstage, as he did at Tuesday’s opening, in supple jeans and sleeveless T-shirt, barefoot. From that moment on, he is constantly in motion -- arms billowing, torso undulating, feet slapping the floor.

While DJ Moni (otherwise known as Monica Pineda) provides mysterious, science fiction sounds, Will Power recounts a walk through his neighborhood that led to an encounter with a strange old man. With shoulders hunched and a gravelly rasp in his voice, he becomes that character. “I’m Ole’ Cheesy from the Griot crew / I am the last one so it’s time to teach you / The old stories, and then you gotta make em new! / Zuu.” (That “zuu,” much like DJ Moni’s bursts from the turntable, becomes a form of punctuation, a means of exclamation throughout the tale.) The old man takes Will Power into a shack, where six other storytellers await. There, they continue to meet for mentoring until, one day, the old man fails to appear and they realize it is their turn to carry on.

Their stories conjure vivid images: a man, angered by the events of Sept. 11, 2001, who beats his fists bloody while punching a stone wall, for instance, or a church van full of mercenaries who sing “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” as they roam the streets looking to assassinate the rival preacher who is winning away their young people. Division and violence are studied; unity and perseverance are urged.

Mid-lesson, a storm breaks, sweeping away all but Will Power, who is left to ask the audience: “What about the stories and storytellers that’s inside you?”

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‘Flow’

Where: Macgowan Little Theater, UCLA, (Parking Lot 3), Westwood

When: 8 p.m. today-Saturday; 7 p.m. Sunday

Ends: Sunday

Price: $30

Info: (310) 825-2101

Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes