Art of Resistance: Chorus

10/23/20 - Activists and artists — like all of us — were waking up each day in anger and despair after Trump's election. Alongside actions and demonstrations, groups started forming around the country to gather, protest, and sing. In the first episode about the art of resistance, we listen to the voices (spoken and sung) of two choirs: the Resistance Revival Chorus in New York City and Community Chorus in Los Angeles. 

Transcript below.

Listen on Apple Podcasts | Stitcher | Overcast | Pocket Casts | Spotify.

CREDITS

Producer: Gina Delvac

Hosts: Aminatou Sow & Ann Friedman

Theme song: Call Your Girlfriend by Robyn

Composer: Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs.

Associate Producer: Jordan Bailey

Visual Creative Director: Kenesha Sneed

Merch Director: Caroline Knowles

Editorial Assistant: Laura Bertocci

Design Assistant: Brijae Morris

Ad sales: Midroll

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TRANSCRIPT: ART OF RESISTANCE

Aminatou: Welcome to Call Your Girlfriend.

Ann: A podcast for long-distance besties everywhere.

Aminatou: I'm Aminatou Sow.

Ann: And I'm Ann Friedman.

Aminatou: Hi Ann Friedman.

Ann: Hello!

Aminatou: How's it going?

Ann: I was just going to say I'm not going to ask how you're doing, I'm just going to say hello. [Laughs]

Aminatou: I always reflexively say "How is it going?" as a "You don't have to tell me how you're doing but we can have some small chit-chat about the weather."

Ann: Right, the how is it going meaning like yes it is late October, the world is still here. I am still in it. That is what's happening. [Laughs]

Aminatou: Ann I cannot believe it's late October.

Ann: I know.

Aminatou: Like that is kind of blowing my mind.

Ann: I know. You know, that episode we did, god, probably almost a year ago now or maybe at the beginning of 2020 about time and our perception of time is one of those where I'm like literally every episode could be that. We could just sit here ruminating on the weirdness of time and our perception of it every single week.

Aminatou: [Sighs] Yeah, it just -- it makes no sense. Well the time, it's happening. [Laughs] There is a lot going on in the world, a sentence that also can be applied to pretty much every day. But it's true that, you know, there's an election in less than two weeks in this country at least.

Ann: Yeah. So are we going to talk about the election today?

Aminatou: Absolutely not because I did not come on this podcast to be #triggered. [Laughs] I mean we're not going to talk about the election but I think we want to talk about ways that we are resisting all kinds of things and ways that art can be part of our resistance.

(1:45)

Ann: Yeah. And also I think ways that art and having a community around art and creation can really sustain the kind of long-game work that exists whether or not we are actively in election mode, I think that is very appealing to me as a conversation right now, like not just what feels like very traditional activism of donating, phone banking, protesting, but also how are we all using our skills and interests in a kind of ongoing way to do the work we want to do for change in this world?

[Theme Song]

Aminatou: I mean that works for me.

Ann: [Laughs] You're like co-sign that model.

Aminatou: Yeah, I'm like I'm co-signing that model. My therapist and I were talking not just about the things that I need to therapize about but basically about Emma Goldman who is like an anarchist, political activist, and writer. I love that my therapist is also probably an anarchist in their private life. But anyway sent me down this rabbit hole about reading about Emma Goldman and she has this quote that the minute I saw it I was like did some sorority girl invent this and attribute it to Emma Goldman?

Ann: I know exactly what you're going to say.

Aminatou: The if I can't dance I don't want to be in your revolution. I fully did not believe that that was a -- you know, that a feminist anarchist said that. It just seems too good, you know, like college dorm poster material. It turns out that it's like a real quote actually [Laughs]. And I was like you know what? I'm not there yet but I would like to really channel this.

(3:55)

Ann: Yeah. And I feel like the theme of today's episode and on our agenda is it's not my revolution if I can't sing to it I feel like is an accurate description. [Laughs]

Aminatou: 100 percent.

Ann: On today's episode we have two different choruses, one largely based in New York, one largely based in Los Angeles, that are doing essentially activist and resistance work through creating music and singing together. You know we have as lightly untraditional for us format to today's episode where we are going to hand over the mics to two different members of each of these choruses so they can talk to each other about why making music as an act of resistance is something that they gravitated toward and what they get from this kind of community that they don't get anywhere else.

Aminatou: Well first up we have Sarah Sophie Flicker and Nelini Stamp from the Resistance Revival Chorus that is based here in New York and that I have been really lucky to hear sing many times. The chorus is a collective of women protest singers that was founded in the wake of the Women's March. Sarah and Nelini met or rather solidified their friendship by working on the Women's March together and here they are in their own voices telling you about the work they do.

[Interview Starts]

Nelini: My name is Nelini Stamp and I use she/her pronouns and I am a co-founder and a member of the Resistance Revival Chorus.

Sarah: I'm Sarah Sophie Flicker, she/her pronouns, and I too am a founder and member of the Resistance Revival Chorus.

Nelini: The Resistance Revival Chorus was built in the summer of 2017 and me and Sarah Sophie were hanging out talking about what we needed in the moment where everything, every month, every week there was a new thing from the Trump administration. It seemed like people just needed a bit of hope and a bit of joy. And I know for me music really brings joy to so many people and it's a level of connection that's higher than talking to folks. You communicate. For me I was a singer when I was younger and went to LaGuardia High School For the Performing Arts, shoutout to my school, and we needed new protest songs so that was part of the idea.

(6:30)

Sarah: It was a day in March I think, it was a few -- not even a few months, like a few weeks after the Women's March and we had organized A Day Without a Woman and Nelini and I were marching together and there was a moment where she had grabbed a bullhorn and just started singing. You know, and I'd known Nelini for a while but for some reason I didn't know she had quite the voice that she has and she started singing and I started singing with her then everyone started singing. I looked at her and I just remember we had a brief discussion about how critical music and creativity was to this moment. And I think for both Nelini and I -- you know, I come from a history of creative communities. You know, my very first memories were in Christiania in Denmark which is one of my favorite weirdo places in the world. It's basically like an artist's, anarchist's, socialist community where . . .

Nelini: Sounds like heaven. [Laughs]

Sarah: Nelini -- I mean, listen, Amina can tell you. You will see a lot of white people with dreads there which is not great.

Nelini: Okay. [Laughs]

Sarah: But -- but aside from that that's how I grew up and I grew up in community theatre, in dance, then I went on to be a member of Act Up when I was a teen and late in my teens when so many of my friends in San Francisco were dying then went on to form the Citizens Band which was another political cabaret directive that I was the creative director of. You know, I think I've always functioned in communities -- and I've always been drawn to cultural organizing; I just think it's as simple as I was an only child and I was really lonely and all I want in this world is to be in community with people and to be known by people in that way that siblings know each other.

(8:30)

So especially in that moment, like it's funny looking back on it because it all felt so stressful and terrible and certainly as bad if not worse than what we had all imagined when Trump was elected and we've just realized that if we do not infuse this moment with music and delight and art and community I don't think we're all going to survive this. I don't know how we could survive without it, so that was really the genesis of it.

Nelini: I haven't been able to do that many creative endeavors outside of politics particularly in the last four years because of this administration that we have. But I think that the thing that's really different about this for me is that it has a . . . it has a political sphere. It is all women, gender-nonconforming, and femmes which is really great. It's nice to just be in a space with people that also feels safe and feels loving and feels warm. We're not without our challenges as well because we live in a society but I think it is . . . I mean for me what I get out of the space is just so much healing.

(9:50)

I mean I hadn't performed at the Chorus for a while this year and we did an event the night after RBG passed and it was just beautiful. It's just like it automatically kind of like . . . I was just in a terrible mood from a variety of things and I just got that -- there's a spiritual thing that happens when I'm in the Chorus that doesn't happen in a lot of places that is just . . . I know I'm with people who -- we're on a spectrum of politics but share a particular viewpoint of the world and also share the beauty of caring for one another and each other and can share that with folks through song. So that's just for me one of the most beautiful things that I get out of the space.

Sarah: Yeah. No, I really agree and I'm going to be vulnerable and honest here for a second. You know, the Women's March was brought together so quickly with so many different people from levels of lots of history of organizing and activism to people who had no history of organizing and activism. We had pretty much every gender, every race, you know, every class. It was a real broad spectrum of people and because the Women's March was so public I really, truly still maintain by really no fault of anyone involved, we were just under such high scrutiny in such a public way, that there was a lot of pain and ego and lies that were told about us certainly as well and it was really painful and it was really fraught. You know, the good news is I think we really will -- we have worked through so much of that both publicly and privately and truly consider ourselves a family. But in that moment where the Chorus was born it was so important for me to know for myself, just for myself, that a community of women and femmes and non-binary folks from all different places in the world and different ideologies could come together and work together.

(12:15)

Because I think, you know, as we all know those divisions work by design and work to make it really hard to create mass movements and collectives and collaboration and in my humble opinion those are all things that really threaten the patriarchy and sort of hierarchies as they stand. So what the Chorus specifically brings to me is I think the understanding that we can do this and that this work is never easy but it's also the most meaningful work that I can imagine doing and it's been really interesting to see how the pandemic played out for all of us. You know, and it's a little bit funny because the last time we were all together indoors in a group situation was we were holding a community meeting, and this is a few days before New York City totally locked down, and we were really working out things that were painful for us, things that maybe weren't working, the things that were working.

And I walked out that night feeling so proud of the work we had done and then as fear and pain around coronavirus and shutdowns were happening in New York we came together even more fiercely than ever before I've got to say. And now that we've found ways to continue our work within COVID, you know, it's just like a community that now I can't imagine living without at all.

(13:50)

Nelini: It is the most joyous thing that I've done I think, and I've been married once. [Laughter]

Sarah: But is it really? Is that really a good measure Nelini?

Nelini: I mean my wedding was pretty awesome, it was a Harry Potter themed wedding. But I cannot think of any more joy than I have. In the fall of 2017 I got divorced and my grandfather died, it was before my 30th birthday, and we were doing a kind of event and the anniversary of the general election of Trump being in office. I needed the Chorus. I needed that harmony with women and harmony with people and I needed to just sing. I needed to get that out of my system, all the pain that I was feeling that fall.

And so for me it's just -- and my grandfather was slowly decaying. We had our early rehearsals at Sarah Sophie's house and my grandfather was actually in a nursing home a couple blocks away and I would go after seeing my grandfather and be so thankful to have that space to sing freedom songs with folks, to sing things that made me think of the future that we're really fighting and trying to build. So it's really, really un . . . there are no specific words besides joy and light and love and pain and all of the things but it makes me feel a sense of peace when I sing with the Chorus.

Sarah: Yeah. I'm not an amazing singer, like I'm not going to lie, I can hold a tune really well but that's about it. There's this thing where sometimes when we're all singing together and our voices merge in this way where it feels like we are one I guess for lack of a better way to put it. It's like you can feel your voice completely merging seamlessly into everybody else's. I don't know of a magic other than certain moments in parenting and the three days my children were born or marrying my husband of course where -- but that's magic. That's a kind of magic that I do not take for granted.

(16:20)

And, you know, one of our sort of unspoken rules in the Chorus is when we're singing we always are trying to make eye contact with each other. And there's just something, like the delight in all of our eyes when we're looking at each other is so special and -- you know, and this is like because I'm not a real singer I can say this. There has never been a performance, and oftentimes even a rehearsal, where I don't cry and have to stop singing or like my voice breaks. And I imagine that happens to everybody; some people are just better at singing through it than others. But it's a certain kind of alchemy that I think is so special.

[Interview Ends]

Aminatou: Let's listen to one of the Resistance Revival Chorus songs.

[Music]

Aminatou: The Resistance Revival Chorus' album This Joy is out now and we are linking to it in the show notes so do yourself a favor and check it out.

(21:45)

Ann: Ugh, next up we have a couple other chorus members. Here on the west coast Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs who composed much of the music we use on CYG and Tany Ling who is a vocalist, singer, accomplished musician, together the two of them lead Community Chorus which Carolyn founded and I think Tany joined shortly thereafter right after the 2016 election. They have a really incredible rapport and I love hearing people who are brought together by not just a kind of friendship and comradery and values but also because of their creative collaboration. I also love professionals who are not precious about their work in only working with other pros. You know, part of their whole practice with Community Chorus is just finding joy in singing with people full-stop, like does not have to do with making Carnegie Hall ready music even though both of these women have also done that. So chorus as practice rather than performance I guess. So anyway here are Tany and Carolyn talking to each other about that practice.

[Interview Starts]

Carolyn: My name is Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs. My pronouns are she/her and I came to this chorus work through my music and art practice. I am a composer and performance artist and in the wake of the 2016 elections I was attending a lot of protests and noticing that my voice was quite ragged from yelling and I thought I'd rather be singing at this protest and I have a feeling other folks might want to as well, so started Community Chorus early in 2017. And the idea is that it's not a -- there's no audition. It's like a drop-in chorus so anyone who's interested in singing can pop in for one rehearsal if they feel like it. They can just meet us at the protests and sing along. We bring extra lyric sheets for everyone and in general the -- I mean, well, this is all pre-core but most of the songs that we sing at the protests are really easy to pick up. And then we have some of the more seasoned members singing the harmonies.

(24:15)

Tany: I'm Tany Ling. I am the conductor for the Community Chorus. I'm a professional singer and a music instructor, I teach voice lessons. My background in choral music is I actually started singing in choirs seriously when I was in high school and all through college. We did very serious choral work and attended international competitions, statewide competitions. We won some competitions. I've sung in choirs and venues up and down the state of California and I've performed at Carnegie Hall and on stages in Wales and Hungary and other parts of the UK and Eastern Europe.

Up until our recent shutdown I was still singing as a paid singer in various choirs around Southern California doing mostly church singing and then I'm also a professional singer so I do a lot of classical music and new music and experimental music and microtonal music. So I found Community Chorus through my performing, professional, and personal relationship with Carolyn.

Carolyn: Yay.

Tany: Because I was performing in a lot of her -- what do you want to call those pieces Carolyn? [Laughter]

Carolyn: What are they?

(25:50)

Tany: Yeah. We were doing a lot of, what, public art performances?

Carolyn: Yeah, vocal and movement public performance and ritual is what I write when I have to describe it in one sentence.

Tany: That's very good. And Carolyn, when she started this choir I decided to go check it out. I was lucky to be there at the very first rehearsal that was held.

Carolyn: Yeah.

Tany: Yeah, and I sang with the choir for a bit off and on and then one day Carolyn said she was considering adding another element to it which was getting I guess someone with some official -- you want to call it official conducting experience? Which I had some prior.

Carolyn: Yeah, formal. Yeah, someone who could actually read music for example. [Laughs] And was charismatic and wonderful and captivating so obviously Tany.

Tany: It's been an honor and this whole thing has been a group effort for sure, thankfully so. The very first rehearsal for Community Chorus was amazing. We were at the Women's Center For Creative Work and there were so many people there. I think we would've gotten in trouble with the fire marshal had that been an issue, had that come up, but the room was packed full of people who were so happy to be there together, to sing together, to try out this new chorus. And I was amazed. I was amazed that so many people came from so many different parts of town. A few of us knew at least one other person there but it was really this wonderful, unifying moment and Carolyn was leading and I don't remember all of the songs we did.

Carolyn: I think we did Rise by Solange and Let Your Little Light Shine. Yeah.

Tany: Right, yeah. And there was a certain freestyle element to it because we would learn the main melody and then we would improvise our harmonies on the subsequent go-arounds of the pieces. Everyone was a little shy at first. You know, it took a few people to kind of be like "Okay, well I'm going to just step up. This is a safe space. I can try things here, you know?" And then everyone kind of slowly was peeling off the layers. That's the great thing about this choir is it is a very safe space and you can kind of go through the process of finding yourself here, you know? We know ourselves to a certain degree but there are always these aspects, things we didn't know we could do, things we've been wondering if we could do and music is the perfect means of expression for this.

(28:40)

Carolyn: I love that, yeah. I was just thinking when you were talking about that, I would say two-thirds of the people who joined, their first statement would be like "I'm a terrible singer." They would enter the door and be like "I can't sing." I'm like well this is the place for you and sing you will. [Laughs] And yeah, I mean I was I guess not surprised at how much trauma people have around their voices and I think that's been a kind of added special element of this chorus. It is kind of drop-in vocal therapy during some practices, maybe all. Do you agree with that Tany?

Tany: Oh absolutely. Absolutely. Chorus kind of gives you the best of both terrifying worlds. It's like you sing with other people so you're like oh, great, I can kind of hide behind these other voices around me right? I'll just sing really softly because I don't want anyone to judge me. I don't want anyone to judge my voice. And then at the same time it's like wait, I'm too quiet; I really want to be heard. [Laughs] But then you have the voices around you to buoy you when you flip that switch and you're like wait, I'm ready to be heard now and I can do it in the safety of this group where everyone else pretty much is having the same thoughts, you know? It's that collective space where we can support each other while also finding out what our strengths are and developing our strengths too.

Carolyn: Mm-hmm, yeah.

Tany: And have a voice and be heard too.

(30:20)

Carolyn: One of the highlights of this chorus also I think is what I call a freedom chord. So this is just everyone making a tone at the same time and actually can we just try one? Just obviously Gina can edit this out but I feel like it's kind of interesting. So Ann, if you just go like ugh. You can make any sound but we just do it all at the same time.

Ann: Okay.

Carolyn: So on the count of three, any sound. Let's make the ah, like ahh.

Ann: Okay.

Carolyn: One, two, three.

Everyone: Ahhhhhhh.

Carolyn: Yeah, so that. [Laughs]

Ann: You guys have more stamina than I do.

Carolyn: I mean we've been practicing.

Ann: I know.

Tany: There were some good vibrations there.

Carolyn: Yeah, I loved that low note you were holding. I mean when you're in a room with everyone making that sound it is like -- it is psychedelic. It is straight-up psychedelic, you can feel all your cells twizzling. As exercises we perform some Paulina Alvarez scores that are about listening and making experimental sound together. I'm missing the vibration of singing in the same room with people, singing in the same space with people.

(31:48)

Tany: I had stopped doing any sort of activism for a long time because I was pretty into it when I was in high school and college but at the time when I would try to dare I say get on the soapbox after a while that became so demoralizing that I just stopped. I had to stop and I decided that I was just going to do activism on my own for myself. You know, ideally it benefits people around me somehow but I wasn't going to try make my voice heard as much. I was just going to do it for myself. And I had really stopped participating in any outward activism for a very, very long time really until I started doing things with Chorus. That's been a huge step for me to come back to this and I feel like Chorus was kind of -- it was the way to do it. That was the way that got me back in because it was a group effort. We don't all line up 100 percent with our ideas and our politics and everything. We don't have to. But obviously we're going along the same course enough that we can do this together. So it's been a huge deal for me to attend these events and support these events and support these people like Katie Porter. I'm very grateful to have this as my medium through which to express I guess where my passions lie when it comes to whatever's happening in the world right now.

Carolyn: I love to bring political activism into my performances, in general like the experimental, vocal, and movement performances, performance art, public ritual. I like to now bring Chorus into those as well, like we did this performance, this public performance in downtown L.A. that was right before the 2018 election called Ritual For Democracy and it had some scary masks and coordinated movement and Tany was a featured singer. And then Chorus came from the crowd and formed a kind of V and Tany led them through a song about listening and collective action like at the very end of the performance. And then at the end of the performance we announced this but that our partner organization, Artists For Democracy, had organized to get out the vote. That was happening the following weekend and a lot of people showed up from that performance. It was very galvanizing. It was very encouraging.

(34:50)

Being in a space with folks that I wouldn't necessarily encounter on a daily basis, I mean that sounds maybe a little like duh but I am often working in my office, in my studio, in my mind groups and I work with an ensemble of friends and colleagues but this is just -- there's something about it being open. Like I said we never know who's going to show up, who's going to be there, what are we going to learn?

Tany: The opportunity for the exchange of ideas is probably a huge part of Chorus. It's not an explicit part of Chorus but it's always there. And ideas about anything -- anything. There's always room to jam, to chat, to exchange, you know? To discuss. I and many other musicians, we do a lot of solo work like Carolyn was talking about and by that I'm referring to our own prep work, our own individual practice. All of that stuff that has to happen before you even begin to meet with someone else to rehearse together if you're lucky enough to do that.

(36:05)

And that's always my favorite part is when I've got my part down and the other person or other persons have their part down, then we get to come together. Then the real magic happens and it's nice to be able to share that experience with someone else instead of just toiling away all by yourself. And the great thing about choir is it's . . . we all have a voice, we all have our individual voices, but when we come together we get to amplify our voices by singing together, you know? And you can take that as far as you want: we're amplifying our ideas, amplifying our thoughts, amplifying our emotions. But there's something powerful about being stronger or louder -- I don't really like the word louder, I like stronger. So being stronger without having to be louder I guess as an individual. We're stronger together. That's kind of a tired thing to hear but it's true. That's why people say it all the time. [Laughs] We're stronger together, yeah.

Carolyn: Becoming more comfortable with your actual voice can help you I think galvanize you to take action outside of Chorus. That is my ideal. I hope it is true. I think it is true for some of the participants.

Tany: I think so. Carolyn has this great quote on the Community Chorus website: vocalizing is a radical act. I love that quote. I made a poster out of her quote.

Carolyn: Aww. [Laughs]

Tany: When you think about it, because how many people in the world aren't allowed to speak their minds or have their own thoughts validated? So many people have been hushed -- hushed by their governments, by their cultural norms whatever that may be, by family even which is sad. But vocalizing is a radical act. You're allowed to be heard. We're allowed to be heard. That doesn't mean screaming over other people to be the loudest person in the room but we all have our thoughts and ideas and everyone should have the opportunity to be heard, and if we're going to do it through singing great.

[Interview Ends]

Ann: Ugh, I love them. Let's listen to a song from Community Chorus.

[Music]

Ann: We will link in the show notes so you can listen to more songs from Community Chorus and yeah, I think they also have a model where if it's something that you wanted to start where you are in the era when people can safely sing together that is an option. I love this as an accessible form of activism and a replicable form of activism.

(40:50)

Aminatou: Yeah. You know, I just really appreciate what -- you know, the reality that everyone has brought to the situation, right? That it is both really joyful and also really hard work and I just . . . I don't know, I feel very heartened by the fact that you can do this kind of creative activism with your work and get so much personal fulfillment from it and also make a difference at the same time. It just seems very sweet and lovely to me.

Ann: Before we go I have a question for you. So the Emma Goldman quote that you mentioned at the top of the episode which is "It's not my revolution if I can't dance to it," how would you fill in the blank of "It's not my revolution if I can't blank to it?"

Aminatou: Oh that's so good. I mean sing is already taken.

Ann: I mean that can be your answer too. [Laughs]

Aminatou: I mean I'm not a singer so let's be real here. You know, it's not my revolution if I can't snack to it is probably where my answer is. I was like where are the food revolution people? Because I'm ready to go there.

(42:00)

Ann: It's not my revolution if I can't snack to it?

Aminatou: What's yours?

Ann: My version is something crafty, you know what I mean? I'm like making the protest sign, making the shirt with iron-on letters. Little acts of making things I feel like are my kind of creative resistance form so maybe it's not my revolution if I can't craft to it. It sounds so horrible and like Etsy t-shirt but that is kind of my reality. Yeah, like a hot glue gun is involved, like a non-lethal gun that I love like the hot glue gun. [Laughs]

Aminatou: I love this Midwest infused revolution vibes for you.

Ann: Yeah, my Midwest praxis. [Laughs]

Aminatou: You know, crafting is very important and crafting is political as you have taught me so, you know, I'm going with it.

Ann: I love it. All right, I'll see you on the Internet and in the revolution.

Aminatou: I'll see you in the revolution. Bye boo.

Ann: Bye.

Aminatou: You can find us many places on the Internet: callyourgirlfriend.com, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, we're on all your favorite platforms. Subscribe, rate, review, you know the drill. You can call us back. You can leave a voicemail at 714-681-2943. That's 714-681-CYGF. You can email us at callyrgf@gmail.com. Our theme song is by Robyn, original music composed by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs. We're on Instagram and Twitter at @callyrgf. Our producer is Jordan Bailey and this podcast is produced by Gina Delvac.

[Music]
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