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Sacred Nine Project: Sing Me, Sing Me Not
How can we whites walk the “holy ground” of the Spiritual without trampling it?
Friday, October 22, 2021, 2:30-3:45 PM, Tulane Vocal Arts Festival, Dixon Hall Annex, Tulane University
A good many years ago, we became aware of cultural appropriation. In the choral world, it seems the promotion of multicultural music and the resistance to sing the experience of other peoples were germinating in separate petri dishes and perhaps not grafted to each other to this day. Exactly where does cultural appreciation end and cultural appropriation begin?
I have not programmed an African American Spiritual with my university choir for the last several years because I have been afraid it was appropriative, or worse, that I would somehow show disrespect to this repertoire that was born of pain, as well as the surreal need to create a code language that would land Enslaved People on safe soil. Instead of addressing directly the issue of performing Spirituals, I have stayed in my “safe space” and hardly programmed them at all. When I discerned discomfort even in my church choir, where spirituals are chosen based on their liturgical purpose rather than an impetus to “dazzle ‘em with a flashy spiritual,” I knew I had to take a deep dive.
I fully expected to read a couple of articles that frowned upon whites singing spirituals; then I’d be able to close that book and move on with my career. Surprisingly, I have mostly found the opposite (and I have sought only the opinions of African American performers and scholars): most believe that whites can and even should perform Spirituals when certain conditions are met.
Should whites (we) program spirituals? If so, can we perform the “sorrow songs” like “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child,” given that mothers were often separated from their children? Should we sing Spirituals in the original dialect indicated in many of the scores? Should we tackle songs that strongly seem to allude to the Underground Railroad like “Deep River?” I have completed a great amount of reading the literature and interviewing African American performers and scholars for up-to-the-minute perspectives on how to best honor this sacred repertoire and its heirs*.
*I heard “heirs” first in this context from LizBeth LaBarbara
This is the video from the initial, October 22, 2021 presentation at Tulane University.
I love a metaphor. The following “scene” was part of the original presentation, but due to the length of the presentation (6000 words!) and the too-fanciful nature of the metaphor, I just decided to drop it here for anyone interested. This is my metaphor for whites singing Spirituals:
Imagine being invited to a really fine home. There are at least two kinds of guests: one rushes in, starts picking up valuable objects without asking, clumsily setting them down, and causing the hostess a great deal of irritation. But you are different. You pause, admire something, and say, “Ma’am, I simply love that teapot. It’s funny because I’ve actually done a great deal of reading about that style of China. I could never hope to own one myself, but would you mind telling me what this teapot means to you? The lady of the house invites you to sit. Not only does she begin regaling you about the provenance of this particular heirloom, but she pours you a rich cup of tea from it. She says, “Please, drink,” and she seems enriched in the telling and you are certainly humbled in the hearing and the partaking.