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Looking much like members of a street gang or pickup b-ballers, the well-muscled cast of Scratch and Burn takes its positions onstage. Shaking his shaggy dreads, Michael "Xeno" Langebeck drops to all fours, pawing the wooden floor of the Miami Light Project's rehearsal space with his knuckles like the bull he is supposed to represent. Like some sadistic, wild-eyed shaman, a lithe dancer in blue sweatpants and wife-beater laughs devilishly as he goads his wailing comrades into a savage beatdown of the bull. The brutality increases as the background music, composed and performed by Miami DJ Brimstone127, grows more and more intense.

Finally, the shaman -- actually dancer Kristoff Sk�let -- stands triumphantly over the kill and mimes the carving of the bull, the meat and viscera of which he places in wooden bowls and tosses to his mates. This sets off another round of frenzied dancing, movements that combine elements of tribal ritual with break-dancing and the Brazilian martial art of capoeira, as the barefoot Sk�let again throws back his head and laughs maniacally.

Is it any wonder that Scratch and Burn playwright Teo Castellanos is a vegetarian? "I cherish life, and that means all life," Castellanos says after the rehearsal, explaining his decision to go meatless as he casually plants himself on a couch in the offices of the Miami Light Project. The 16-year-old, not-for-profit arts organization commissioned Scratch and Burn for its third annual Miami/Project Hip-hop. Sporting a lime-green, button-down shirt with unbuttoned cuffs, a clean-shaven head and a goatee, Castellanos personifies the hip Miami arts aesthetic: focused, spiritual, ethnic, street. "I cherish the life of the fish or the chicken, first and foremost," he continues. "And second, I don't want to invite death into my body. You ingest the violence, which turns to violence in your body."

But Castellanos understands that the roots of aggression in the human animal go much deeper than eating hamburgers. With Scratch and Burn, the centerpiece of the eight-day Miami/Project Hip-hop event (see information below), he explores the origins of mankind's primal urge for violence. The show's powerful climax depicts a boxing match between "Us" (the United States) and "Them" (Iraq) that quickly escalates as the gloves literally come off and invisible bombs and bullets rake and contort the bodies of the writhing dancers.

"The work is so different from what hip-hop typically is," MLP programs manager Rebekah Lanae Lengel says. "We have to educate the community that generally thinks, 'Theater equals Shakespeare; hip-hop equals club.'

"Hip-hop theater has been emerging throughout the country," she continues, citing the works of New York's Danny Hoch and Philadelphia's Rennie Harris. "They grew up with hip-hop and are incorporating it into theater but, at the same time, are saying, 'Don't just define it as hip-hop theater, it's theater.' "

With their Miami Light commission to create a hip-hop theater piece, Castellanos and choreographer Ricardo "Speedy Legs" Fernandez originally conceived a show about the history of the genre. But after a few fits and starts, Castellanos reasoned that anyone who was interested could read about the origins of hip-hop and decided instead to tackle a topic about which he was truly passionate: the war in Iraq and its terrible human cost.

Incorporating elements of break-dancing and rap, Castellanos expands on questions that had been vexing him: Is the need to eliminate one's enemies an innate human drive? Is violence ever justified? Will mankind ever evolve into a more enlightened state of being? Castellanos appears to be hopeful in regard to the last question.

"I think we're striving for that," he says. "I don't know how many millions of years it will take to get there. But I think people [become] enlightened little by little."

Growing up in Carol City in the 1970s, Castellanos felt distinctly like an outsider. Of Puerto Rican descent, he didn't fit in with whites, blacks or Cubans. His struggle for identity brought trouble.

"I had a tough upbringing: broken home, drugs, the streets," he says. "It's funny. I had this dichotomy: I was shy and histrionic. I would act out in negative ways."

Castellanos didn't avoid the traps of growing up in the hood, he says with a laugh, but rather climbed out of them. At one point, he saw a vision of his future, and it scared the hell out of him.

"I always had a little voice in the back of my head saying, 'You're better than this,' " he relates. "Then one day, the voice said, 'You are this.' So I went into rehab. That's when all the smoke cleared, so to speak."

In his mid-to-late 20s, he went back to school and earned a bachelor of fine arts in creative writing, no easy undertaking in that he already had a wife and small child. Castellanos found creative outlets in spoken-word performance and music, even fronting the South Florida ska band King Seven and the Soul Sonics.

"We toured up the East Coast for, like, $5 a day," he recalls fondly. "Some of us slept in the van, and some of us slept on the couch at a friend's house. I always chose to sleep in the van, because they used to party in the house, and by that point, I had stopped getting high. I had my little reading light, and I was reading Huston Smith's The World's Religions."

Continuing to pursue his interests in religion, history and culture, Castellanos plumbed his Puerto Rican roots and penned and performed a one-man theatrical trilogy titled War, Revolution and the Projects, which toured the East Coast. For his next effort, he decided to step outside his own culture and present a glimpse into the lives of Miami's vibrant multiethnic community. What began as a short performance piece about a Haitian jitney driver evolved into N.E. Second Avenue, an exploration of nine characters, from a Wynwood drug dealer to a gay South Beach resident to an elderly Cuban Jewish man.

With a grant from Miami-Dade County, Castellanos brought N.E. Second Avenue to the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, where it took the Fringe First Award. Recognition followed the prestigious win, but it didn't result in a huge windfall.

"Has work come from it?" he asks, echoing the question. "I think work has come more from my relentless pursuit of wanting to work. There's nothing else that I know how to do. If I were a good accountant, it would be over, man. If I could be happy being a lawyer or doctor, or even a firefighter, shit, why would I want to go through this torture of not knowing where my next paycheck is coming from?"

Although he has tasted some mainstream success -- for instance, sharing a scene with John Leguizamo in the movie Empire -- Castellanos recognizes how difficult it is for an actor to strike it big outside of Los Angeles or New York. He's not too proud to shill for say, Mickey D's; if they pay him Screen Actors Guild scale on a commercial, he says, "I will bite into that motherfuckin' Big Mac!" Still, his roots run deep in Miami, and he acutely feels the need to act as its champion, to show it in all its gritty, multiculti glory.

"You know, John Leguizamo, Danny Hoch [and] Eric Bogosian have done a great job of representing New York City," he says. "This is my time to represent this city and let people know who we are. I've always been a soldier in the battle for recognition of Miami as a cultural city."

A few weeks before the show's opening, the dancers' feet skid and thud and squeak on the wooden floor of the Light Box Theater, the Miami Light Project's performance and rehearsal space, which is part of its downtown offices on a funky slice of Biscayne Boulevard. A lively soundtrack melding jazz and hip-hop plays over the sound system as the five-man cast -- members of Castellanos' D-Projects urban arts collective -- warm up in a series of whirling, spinning windmill moves that owe as much allegiance to say, the movie Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo as Alvin Ailey.

With the exception of the conservatory-trained Sk�let, the dancers are street-schooled, which is all the more amazing when viewers witness their dramatic skills and discipline. Castellanos has put them through the paces, introducing them to all manner of theater and dance training, including workshops and master classes in everything from capoeira to buto, a technique that involves the "inner play of the body," according to the instructor brought in to work with the ensemble after its midweek rehearsal.

Despite the show's imminent debut, Castellanos continues to refine some of the details. Gathering the dancers around in a circle on the floor, he gives them notes from a previous rehearsal. "Be careful on the bombing scene," he instructs, "because you'll trip over the bowls." There is some back-and-forth over whether to use stocking masks in one scene in which the dancers act like puppets. "Let's take the stocking masks off the puppets," Castellanos says. "Let's keep the faces, because the faces are powerful."

"What about mine?" one dancer asks. "I'm going to be in silhouette."

"I like them," another offers.

"I also like the ripping of them," still another chimes in.

The troupe has yet to set foot on the stage of the Byron Carlyle Theater, where the actual performance will take place. As opposed to the bare curtain of the Light Box, the backdrop will include a couple of Buddhist prayer flags and a video screen, which will project text -- from the Bible, the I Ching and the Quran -- as well as images such as an American flag and flowing water and blood. A couple of live percussionists will also be on hand, which, Castellanos promises, will make the energy jump even higher, if possible.

There is nothing subtle about Scratch and Burn. The show's message comes across as clear and bracing as a slap in its plea for humanity and its prayer for enlightenment. "I want [audiences] to think twice about the patriotic fervor of war," Castellanos concludes. "We can be patriots, and we can love this country and not want to kill people on the other side of the world."

Scratch and Burn will open Thursday and run through Sunday at the Byron Carlyle Theater, 500 71st St., in Miami Beach. Tickets cost $20. Call 305/576-4350 or visit www.miamilightproject.com.

Miami/Project Hip-hop

Today (Wednesday)

7 p.m. Art on the Walls exhibition of works by members of Mexican arts organization El Faro de Oriente. Works will remain on display through May 27 at The Light Box, 3000 Biscayne Blvd., Suite 100, in Miami. Free.

8 p.m. La Fabri_K, Lisandro P�rez-Rey's film about Cuban rap groups, at The Light Box. Free.

Thursday

8 p.m. Scratch and Burn premiere at the Byron Carlyle Theater. $20.

Friday

8 p.m. Scratch and Burn, followed by Q&A with Teo Castellanos and D-Projects company members at the Byron Carlyle Theater. Q&A free with $20 show admission.

Saturday

Noon Capoeira lecture and demonstration by Giovanni Luquini, Ron "Zen One" Wood and Fernando Lee at The Light Box. Free.

3 p.m. Opening address by hip-hop theater pioneer Will Power at The Light Box. Free.

3:30 p.m. Roundtable discussion at The Light Box. Free.

8 p.m. Scratch and Burn at the Byron Carlyle Theater. $20.

Sunday

1 p.m. Pre-show discussion on the topic "Creating Hip-hop Theater," with Castellanos, Wood, Anita "Rokafella" Garcia and Will Power at the Byron Carlyle Theater. Free with $20 show admission.

2 p.m. Scratch and Burn at the Byron Carlyle Theater. $20.