Hip-Hop Sorceress: La Bruja

 Columbia Heights 

CARIDAD DE LA LUZ HAS NO INTENT TO CAST WICKED SPELLS, although she chose as her stage name "La Bruja," the Spanish word for witch. In fact, she's more concerned about igniting the magic within others. "Everybody has magic," she says. "I like to connect with people and let them know that they have the same capacity to make whatever they dream possible."

With a potent brew of spoken word, hip-hop, reggaeton and rock, La Bruja hopes to connect with people at the Gala Hispanic Theater as she whisks them to her Bronx stomping grounds in her installment of the three-part celebration, "Oyelo! Out Loud." Described as a medley, her one-woman show will incorporate snatches from previous works, such as "Brujalicious," "Boogie-Rican Blvd" and "Brujeria" as she explores themes of womanhood, her Puerto Rican heritage and hip-hop.

La Bruja received her poetry gifts from her great-grandmother, an illiterate poet who imparted her talent through oral tradition. "It was all by memory," La Bruja remembers. "When I was about four or five, she taught me how to recite her poems, which always had to do with family, culture and love."

While developing her writing skills, La Bruja grew up in the parallel worlds of poetry and rap in the Bronx, the birthplace of hip-hop. "We were doing hip-hop before knew what hip-hop was," she laughs. "We were breaking on cardboard boxes and doing little rhymes on the sidewalks."

It wasn't until years later, though, that La Bruja took her poems to the stage. "It was at the Nuyorican Café on April 3, 1996; it's a lunar eclipse and everything," she laughs, "I signed up for open mic, performed and got a standing ovation. After that, I never stopped."

» The Gala Hispanic Theater, 333 14th St. NW; with Quique Aviles, Salvana Straw, Fri. & Sat., 8 p.m.; $25; 202-234-7174. (Columbia Heights)