Holding Space, Giving Voice, and Uplifting Black Voices
Honouring Black History Month in conversation with Ashley Daniel Foot, Debi Wong, Rocky Jones, Morgan-Paige Melbourne, and Dawn Pemberton
Bell Hooks said, “To be loving, we willingly hear the others’ truth. And most important, we affirm the value of truth. Telling lies may make people feel better, but they do not help them to know love.”
Vancouver Opera is honouring Black History Month with the broadcast of a recent panel discussion that we hosted with Renaissance Opera. Debi Wong, the founder and artistic director of Renaissance Opera joined Vancouver Opera’s Ashley Daniel Foot and guests Rocky Jones, Minnesota Opera’s, Director of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, Dawn Pemberton, otherwise known as Vancouver’s Queen of Soul, and Morgan-Paige Melbourne, a Toronto-based queer interdisciplinary artist.
We were thrilled to host the discussion in Vancouver’s historic Hogan’s Alley and we gathered in Vancouver’s Strathcona Community Center on Keefer Street. Our co-moderator, Debi Wong, began the afternoon by talking a little bit about why we had programmed this event.
Debi Wong:
How do we center new communities, new voices that are especially erased in the operatic form, but then also the leadership that we do not see in our communities, and this is our very first step towards having new conversations about arts leadership, but also the impact of the arts within our cities and communities. So I, let me see. I don’t know. I’m like, I love you all so much. Why don’t I start by introducing Morgan Paige Melbourne. I actually, Morgan and I, it was so funny. I had been secretly following her work for a long time. I was like, “Who is this amazing, multidisciplinary, classically trained, badass pianist, singer songwriter, filmmaker?”
And I was just so inspired by her work and I, I think I was literally looking up your work the day before and then this email pops into my inbox like, “Hi, my name’s Morgan Paige. I’ve been following your work. I was wondering if we could chat?” And this led to some collaborations most recently having Morgan on a new hip hop opera workshop that we’ve been doing. So I’m really excited to welcome you, Morgan.
Morgan-Paige Melbourne:
Oh, so glad to be here. It was really, it’s been such a fun experience so far. Indie Fest is wicked. You want to check it out if you haven’t done so yet, but so, so happy to be here.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
In 2020, following the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota, Opera Minnesota transformed, I believe, or is on a path of transformation. And that’s led by an incredible team including Rocky Jones, who has been in the opera community for many, many years and we are so deeply honored to have been able to bring Rocky all the way from Minnesota. And when I first started in this role, Rocky was one of the very first people that I reached out to, because I am honored and deeply awed by the work that you do at Minnesota Opera, Rocky and just as a human. And on Rocky’s podcast that he co-hosts with a great, great team called The Score featured in the New York Times as one of opera opera’s most interesting up and coming podcasts, which by the way is a big deal. It’s a big deal. Rocky, I think it’s on an almost weekly basis, has fascinating guests and talks eloquently and passionately about the responsibility that we have, what are our ethical responsibilities as opera goers and as arts lovers in this time. And so I believe that Rocky, you said this is your first time in Canada.
Rocky Jones:
Yes, yeah.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
So it’s our great honor to welcome Rocky Jones.
Rocky Jones:
The honor is all mine. Seriously, thank you so much. Thank you.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
We’re also deeply honored to welcome Vancouver’s Queen of Soul, the moniker that… Dawn Pemberton. I first met Dawn at a concert with the Gospel choir run by Gail Suderman, but of course, I’ve heard your music for years and it was when I met you for the first time, it felt like I already knew you. And I recently was in Toronto and saw the work that you just music directored for Can Stage Choir Boy, and it was so wonderful to see your work has gone across country and it’s wonderful. The teaching, the music that you create is just such an inspiration and we’re honored that you had time in your packed schedule between going from coast to coast to jumping to the islands and performing, Dawn Pemberton, everybody.
Dawn Pemberton:
Hello.
Debi Wong:
So I’m curious, what is a moment of awe you’ve had recently? Morgan, you’re looking at me with anticipation?
Morgan-Paige Melbourne:
Actually, I probably would have to say, most, most recent was doing the hip opera, honestly. I think it’s just the… The best part of it is being able to see everyone in their own element from so many different backgrounds, whether it’s musically or ethnically, coming together and just creating something so brand new, off the cuff, just whatever feels like it is we feel in the moment and just seeing how beautifully it came together was something that’s so inspiring and it just brought me so much joy. And it just goes to show that there’s so much we can do with opera in that case and also just in any genre in general of what’s possible and what’s out there. That’s something that’s just, that was just so bloody cool.
Rocky Jones:
Yeah, I guess for me, I think we did a recent episode of the score where we just got really honest about what it’s like on a personal level doing [inaudible] access work as three black queer people in Minnesota. And it always fills me with quite a bit of awe that there are three black queer people in an opera company who are given space to talk about our experiences and make decisions and actually have influence over the decisions that are being made at the company, which is not something that happens every day.
But also being able to, I think when we talk about inclusive equitable opera, it feels like this thing that’s going to happen someday. But no, there are people who are doing that work right now, who are creating and making beautiful art and making just incredible… That’s why we’re all here literally right now. And so to be able to have those people on our show and to hear about the things that they’re doing, to share their music, to share their art, every day, when I get to sit down with my two friends and whoever shows up that day to share whatever they’re doing, it just fills me with this, “Wow, we get to do this. This is awesome. This is incredible,” so, so that’s really fun to me, and it’s the best part of my week.
Debi Wong:
Wow, that sounds amazing.
Dawn Pemberton:
Does sound amazing. I think maybe it’s the stage in my life, but I feel like I experience awe often.
Debi Wong:
I love that.
Dawn Pemberton:
And whether it’s just, “Look at that bird, oh, my God, that’s amazing,” To even more concrete, I love communities forming and trying to transform the world. I think that often brings a lot of awe my life working on this show Choir Boy, I was like, here are 30 people trying to tell this really impactful story of five young black men who are dealing with sexuality, toxic masculinity, privilege, all that stuff. And we’re like, “Should their blazers be blue or yellow?” But just the commitment, the level of commitment to story and making sure that it’s told well and that everything is intentional, that blows my mind. From the smallest detail to the largest detail, I’m like, “Wow, that’s so nerdy.”
Debi Wong:
I love that. I love the idea of… Or just the care with details that we can get into when we are in our work and be able to do our best work. I’m curious, there’s a little bit of a theme here and it’s something that we’ve talked about, Rocky and Morgan, [inaudible] talking for the first time, but we talked about empowered spaces or spaces of where we can be creative or fully creative. And I’m curious about that theme, if that sparks any ideas from any of you. What does it mean to be in a space where you feel like you’re accessing your full creativity?
Morgan-Paige Melbourne:
I’ve definitely feel pretty lucky enough and really grateful that I have been approached by amazing groups of people who want to actively make a change and be innovative with the way of storytelling through art and through music, whether it’s blending multiple genres together musically or technically or in other art forms and bringing them all together, because oftentimes that’s not as common as you would think it would be. And so oftentimes I find there are a lot of companies who are scared to break those grounds of going outside of the norm. And when you find a group of, like myself, I am a happily, happily declared weirdo.
When you find other groups of people who are cool to try weird things and explore that, it’s like, “Yes, I am so… I want to be a part of that,” because that’s something that will spark change, that will spark something so beautifully creative. And I think definitely being able to amplify those spaces are so important. And because right now, we are pretty much a small community that is growing bit by bit every day, every month, every year. It is definitely showing something that needs to be changed, which is, it’s truly beautiful to be a part of.
Dawn Pemberton:
I was just going to say, I think being empowered in a space begins with feeling safe. And I think as a performer and of color, I feel like I didn’t realize how much of myself and my needs that I would suppress when I didn’t feel safe to ask for what I needed to do my job well. And recently, I had the pleasure of working with a predominantly black cast a couple of months ago and a black director and the director was like, “What do you need? What do you need? I’m here to advocate for you.” And that was the first time, but I was like, “Dang, I would just be silent. I would come to set with my own hair stuff.” He was like, “No, that’s not right.” And I was like, “Oh, you mean I can ask for things?” And he was like, “Yes.” So I think for me, and I’m just being really mindful of, are people feeling safe to ask for what they need? And that’s the beginning step to creating good art, yeah.
Morgan-Paige Melbourne:
I think it’s so interesting how very rare those spaces are where we feel safe. It’s almost, it’s so much so that you can literally count it. On one hand, it’s like how many of these performances are GR or companies I’ve been with where I actually feel like I know I won’t be attached under the rug or indirect communication where I can’t, I would fear what to say, and it’s just purely for the fact of defending myself. It’s something that is not talked about as often. And so when you’re actually working with people who look like you or who are within the same community as you, and you’re all literally understanding the same thing and being a part of that, it’s something so powerful, but it’s so rare.
Rocky Jones:
It’s incredible. It really is. When I first started, I started working at Minnesota Opera in 2016, and at the time there were three people of color on the staff, and I was the one black person on the staff, and I’m from Washington DC, y’all, and I don’t know if you, chocolate city. So that was a new experience for me.
But in the six years, because we’ve actually been doing a lot of the work around equity and inclusion and access, since 2016, fancy that, and in that time, we’ve increased I think it was something like 3% of our staff was folks of color and now it’s 30%. And there was 0% on leadership, now it’s 27%. And it’s just so exciting to now walk into work and to see all of these beautiful, melanated faces walking around the space and feeling safe and feeling… And I think what has changed, obviously we’re not putting the mission accomplished banner up anytime soon. It’s still a very white occupied space. I don’t like to say predominantly white, because I feel like that implies some… “This is just how things happened,” and it wasn’t centuries of intentional decision making, so a very white occupied space.
But all of these people, we have instituted policies. We’re constantly auditing our systems and our procedures in order to be a much more inclusive and equitable organization that people are really committed to that, that it’s a value. And people understand that values are values. They don’t change. We don’t get to pick and choose when we live by our values. And so we’ve created a safer space. I’m not going to say safe, but safe at least that people can come into our space and have the opportunity to succeed. But also, it’s also a safe place to even to fail, to try things and that they’re… Even if things don’t work out, we had no idea when we started the podcast we were going to be in the New York Times, but they were like, “Yeah, ma’am, here’s the money. Try it out, let’s see what happens.” So we had the permission to fail, which I think not a lot of folks of color who enter these spaces get.
Dawn Pemberton:
I feel like permission to fail, literally when you just said that, I was like, “Damn.” I’ve always grown up experiencing life as if failure was not an option.
Rocky Jones:
100%.
Dawn Pemberton:
Yeah. Being a child of immigrant parents, being a black woman, being a woman. It was like every time you show up and you show out, it’s like, “Well, this is my one shot, here I go and I have to do it for the people.” And not that anyone deliberately said that to me, but it’s something that you internalize as a young child and wow, that’s just heavy, it’s deep.”
Morgan-Paige Melbourne:
No, exactly. Because I will actually, literally to the same point that both Rocky and Donna is saying, growing up in an immigrant household, and anytime, just from [inaudible] high where my parents would say, “You have to work a thousand times harder just to prove that you are good enough in these spaces,” and it’s like no room to fail, so there’s all kinds of pressure. And it’s almost as if, if you fail, you look like you’re at your worst, and you can’t allow any room for exploration.
You have to do this, this, this and this to fit all of these boxes so you don’t get put into the stigma or the stereotype, which is so difficult, especially when that’s put on a child. That causes a lot of issues growing up and a lot of unlearning, a lot of unlearning and trying to dissect things of what’s happening. And definitely, it wasn’t until when I left the heavy classical field going into contemporary and doing my own thing where I felt like, “You know what? I’m going to try this out. If it doesn’t work, that’s fine.” And that’s where, it wasn’t until my adult years where I felt comfortable with allowing myself to fail.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
What’s amazing about this panel is that all of us have a musical background and come from the musical milia and trained, I think, in some ways, very classically, and how I want to talk about the innate white supremacism of classical music and Rocky, you talked about that interesting dichotomy that exists in the space that you’re in now. And I want to dig a little bit more into that. And Debi, you’ve also talked about how you have felt exactly the same way about, as a leader of a company, that you have to fight hundreds of times harder in order to be seen and acknowledged. And I’d love if you could actually respond to that, too.
Debi Wong:
There’s a reason I started my own company. It’s because I can’t fit into other companies, and these ideas of trying to make spaces where people can feel empowered and acknowledging where I can’t empower people and my own blindnesses and ignorances and things that I need to be learning and unlearning. Just It’s been an interesting journey of trying to be taken seriously, and now that I’ve had five years of running Renaissance Opera, I’m feeling like I’m invited into these new spaces with these arts leaders and I’m noticing that it gets wider and wider and older and older and more male identifying, and there’s sometimes when I’m in rooms where I’m the only person of color for sure, I’m the only female identifying person, I’m the only person under 40. And this is, to me, this is, it’s so heavy.
And then the only reason I have been able to sneak my way in the back door is because I feel like I’ve had to prove myself over and over and over again and there is no option to fail. There’s zero, I cannot, I feel like I have to be excellent every single time and I cannot misspeak. I cannot, I can’t lose my shit. I can’t have those permissions. I don’t have it. And so it’s a strange thing, but I’m also realizing, I said this to Rocky and Ashley earlier today that I’m, now, when I’m going into spaces, I’m asking myself the question, “Is this a space I have to be destructive in or is it a space I can be creative in?” And I’m choosing now to put my energy towards these spaces where I can be creative and empower others to be creative. And I’m in this mode of, “You know what? We’re just going to build something else. We’re going to do other things now.” So we’ll see how that serves better, but.
Morgan-Paige Melbourne:
It’s definitely also the power of saying no and learning that and realizing that it’s okay to do your own thing and you don’t have to follow the status quo. Breaking out of that mindset, it takes a lot.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
Morgan, you started, or you emerged as a prodigy at the piano, and the repertoire that you’re playing I’m sure felt strange in some ways because of the construct of where it came from and how very colonial and [inaudible] something that we’re exploring in opera. The cannon is so wrought with so much. I would love it if you could talk a little bit about how you encountered that, how you process that, and it’s a big question, how do you still dialogue with that perceived important repertoire that’s required, it seems, in the academy?
Morgan-Paige Melbourne:
Okay, first off, growing up, definitely doing, I was in competitions, heavy duty competitions for years, purely for classical romantic pieces. And luckily, I had a teacher who was so sweet enough to let me do the composers who I felt most comfortable with. And of course, every so often she would sneak in another one where it’s not quite how I felt, but I always, I did my best to always play the composers who were the most rebellious because I felt like I can connect with, at least on some level, on some level of some case. But then definitely once I got into contemporary, I’m like, “Okay, yeah, I’m never going back.” And of course, there are still times where I’m asked to perform certain pieces or certain works, but the context behind it is just written in racism and just so much terrible text and I can’t bring myself to do it anymore.
And I think of course, it’s that rough road of having to face the necessary evil of performing certain pieces until you get recognized for your work and then you can have that decision to, whether to follow that same path or not, and then you can go your own thing. But at the forefront of it, I’m like, “I’m not going to get involved in any of this,” because it’s also too… What I find is, in opera, in fairy traditional opera spaces, and even in traditional orchestral spaces, they want to focus so much on doing the exact same thing on the pieces and making sure it’s based on historical fact because it’s the precious thing. It is the pillar of gold that we cannot mess up whatsoever. And so that includes the most horrendous stories that comes behind it, and it doesn’t create a safe space. And just because yes, there are works that we want to celebrate that are traditional, but that doesn’t mean we have to perform them anymore.
We simply can actually just stop it. Or if you absolutely feel like you have to do it, you can change the narrative, and allow yourself to be able to do that. I’m actually part of a queer, gender bending opera company called Opera Queens, and we make it a point to alter these stories so that it’s POC friendly, [inaudible] LGBTQIA+ friendly as well. And we literally eliminate the racist story that would go behind it. And if we need to change some of the libretti, we will do that to fit the current, the updated world that we are currently living in. We can still do the scores as is, the melody lines. We would keep that within the context, but really change it to go with how we are feeling in this moment, just to honor our own selves. Because it’s almost, because we’re performing these works, it’s almost as if we’re going against our own beings of who we are and it’s like, and we’re attacking ourselves.
And it just, and then that leads us in this battle between of what’s right, what’s wrong, who am I in this whole self-identity crisis and just in the music format alone. And it’s something that’s really interesting to see. So in that case, when it comes down to those things, it’s more than okay to do that, I personally find. Or, because there’s also a beautiful array of contemporary music nowadays, there are living composers who need those opportunities, we can do that. We don’t have to do the other thing, everything else.
’Cause especially, because I’ve been involved in on boards and committees and they’re trying to think, “Oh, how can we expand on audiences? How can we bring these people in?” And I’m like, “First off, you got to stop everything else that’s actually going against these people, I guess people like myself, if you really want them to bring them in, otherwise that’s contradicting the entire scenario.” But of course they just wanted me to have to be there as a trophy just to say, “Oh, we have a black person. We have a black person on the board.” So I’m like, “Okay, if y’all not going to listen to me, I will, goodbye.” So it’s just, it’s all intention.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
Growing up as a mixed race kid on Vancouver Island, it’s hard to see where you fit in to the world of the arts. And it’s in moments this that I am reminded and I’m joined in community and it feels good. Dawn, I know you grew up here in Vancouver and I’d love you to reflect on what that felt like for you as a budding performer and how that still feels to walk through the spaces that you do.
Dawn Pemberton:
Well, I can honestly say that, I think everyone who is a performer will agree that there is something inside you that draws you and pulls you forward, propels you forward in this search for connection, this search for creativity. And thank God we have that, because if I didn’t have that, then I would be working at the bank or something. So I think that in itself is a gift, to have that hunger to just keep going. Definitely growing up in Vancouver, it was a very heavy metal. I grew up in [inaudible]. It was heavy metal, just tight, tight jeans and long hair and t-shirts and storm rider jackets.
So it felt hard to find people who were making music that spoke to my heart and to find people who look like me who were doing what I was curious about doing. Luckily, I had siblings who were modeling that. They were out performing and making music, but I think I have missed a lot of opportunities because I didn’t know what was possible. And I remember having a teacher when I was in university who was like, “Have you thought about opera?” And I was like, “Huh, what?” She’s like, “I think you would do well.” And I was like, “Oh, cool.” And then I just never followed up on it.
Debi Wong:
Good choice.
Dawn Pemberton:
Yeah. But part of it was just not really seeing, sure there was [inaudible] and women, Leontyne Price who were doing it, but I didn’t think it was possible. And so I just remember just trying to seek out just people who were doing it. And this was pre YouTube and pre-internet and all that stuff, so it felt like this lonely quest. And I’m thankful for the path and the journey that I’ve been guided towards, but it definitely makes me think about my responsibility as a performer and a citizen of this community just to how can I show up for other people? And us living our lives is a very radical act and following what you love is a radical act, so I’m here to be radical.
Debi Wong:
I actually was curious, are there any questions from the audience? Yeah, Ian.
Ian Cromwell:
So my name’s Ian Cromwell. I’m a performer in Vancouver, also a classically trained musician, orchestral, I’m a viola player, and where I work now is contemporary music, it’s pop music, mostly. I can see how the music that I make and the music that I appreciate is informed by the classical background. For better or for worse, there is that unlearning of that white supremacist framework and de-privileging certain forms of music over others. And I was hoping the panel could maybe comment on what opera as an art form offers to other forms of art. So talking about bringing our culture into operatic spaces, what does it mean to bring opera into other spaces?
Morgan-Paige Melbourne:
Honestly, the way I view it, it’s definitely not… It’s not just based on the style of singing or the techniques, but it’s actually how the actual opera, and how an actual opera is framed, if you think about it, because of course there’s… Opera and musicals can somewhat go hand in hand. It’s more so of the various aspects that bring opera together like you have your live band, or in this case, you have the live orchestra. You have a really heavy storyline, you have your character pieces. And I think, bringing that into other spaces, you can, mainly because I’m also in contemporary music as well, you can create that storyline based on a contemporary music style, but then you can bring in various singers or various actors who portray that together. And then it’s just a matter of what kind of opera companies would be interested in bridging those places.
Definitely Renaissance Opera is amazing for that. There’s also Tapestry Opera. There’s quite a few indie based opera companies that I find are quite opening to bridging those two worlds together, because a lot of it is, it’s storytelling. Another former storytelling. In this case, a long form, because of course there are, most operas can go up to an hour and a half, two hours. So it’s just a matter of how you would structure that as a contemporary musical space and how you perform that. But I find there’s all forms, all shapes and forms of how that could be bridged. An example, one of the ways that I did it, one of the first, one of my first experiences was with Tapestry Opera, and we turned it into a short film instead.
So we created a storyline, because I am really bad with coming up with storylines for things. It’s like, “I’ll just do the music. Y’all can figure out whatever you want to go with.” So we were able to collaborate on that aspect. We recorded at live. We shot and film everything based on the scenes and how we want it to flow, and we turned that into a film. And so in essence, it’s a dramatic opera, but with alternative pop, contemporary rock music involved in it. And we submitted it to film festivals, it won awards, and it was a cool experience. So that’s definitely one of the examples that could be done with that.
Dawn Pemberton:
There’s something, there’s a bit of cache in privacy and in, or exclusivity, that happens with when you’re involved in this style of music and it’s like, “Well, I’m really smart because I understand this, and this makes me a little bit more special than you because you don’t.” And I think it’s so dangerous, and I think we need to break that down. That needs to be annihilated. And it’s starting to happen. One is by having subtitles in spaces where opera is being performed.
It’s like, “This is in an Italian. Not everyone’s Italian, so I need to know what’s happening.” Things that need to happen. It’s like, “Oh, we need to do opera in unusual spaces. We need to bring it to the people.” And I think once we deconstruct the gatekeeping and make it less like, “You’re special because you understand this, or you can afford to go to this,” that’s a key to opening the world up and making people realize, “Oh, I have a lot in common with this art form.”
Ashley Daniel Foot:
I’m going to just jump in with a thought, and that we’ve been working with a group of Musqueam students who, when we invited them to come to the Queen Elizabeth Theater, they were surprised at just the scale of everything and the canvas that we play on in terms of uniting all of this fantastic, these artists that come together and work with design, with the musicians, with the singers and storytellers all brought together. And they’re like, “We would love to be able to create on this scale, to tell stories that matter to us on this spectrum.”
And I think that it’s something at Vancouver Opera that we are very serious about welcoming and opening that big canvas up, so it’s not just this one big room that performs these remote works, but I believe there is a strong argument to be made that the art form is all about bringing folks together across so many different areas.”
Debi Wong:
It’s I’m also mixed race. I think I was 14 when I learned I wasn’t white, and it was just like “Oh, oh, I, oh, people are looking at me differently, think differently about me.” So when I was growing up, I was trained in classical music, so in a lot of ways that’s the framework through which I understood how to use my voice and how to sing. And as I went through my studies, just it got heavier and heavier and I’m like, “Oh my God, what are these stories? What am I doing? What am I doing in this culture? What am I doing? There’s no one who looks like me in any leadership, in any stories that we’re telling.” And finally, when I said no and stepped outside of the box, I began to realize that if I look at it on a very surface level, there were tools of collaborating that I learned from classical music and opera.
And also, I was drawn to it because Western European Opera was inspired by multidisciplinary collaboration, a whole bunch of different people that came together and were like, “How can we transform storytelling?” And so the question that, we have this talk all the time, “Does opera belong in our company name? Do we just need to drop that because it’s creating a barrier for folks?” And it is. So we think about that a lot. But for myself, because it’s my own, it’s something that’s been a part of me for so long, but understanding and experiencing it as a radical act of collaboration, and part of that is dismantling the inherent power structures that are in it already, but being able to work through those and work with all these different artists has been really powerful. It’s been a really useful tool.
And when you were talking about supertitles and things, and Morgan, you were talking about co-creation, one of the things I was thinking about too is just how we communicate musical language. And in classical music, there’s all this, there’s such, and also in Western European cultures, there’s such an impetus on writing and reading and literacy and all of these things. But many of us come from cultures and traditions of oral storytelling, of oral knowledge, of understanding the world and understanding our ancestral knowledge through other means of communication. And even so, even in this most recent workshop, we keep talking about there were no scores. Yes, there were written words. So we did have that, but there was no musical notation. There was nothing. And I learned more about vocal pedagogy, how my voice and body works from the beatboxer than I did through 15 years of university and voice studies, him just explaining how he’s making sound. I was like, “Oh, my God, I’ve never even thought of that before.” So there are seeds there that can be expanded on and resewn to create something new, I think.
Morgan-Paige Melbourne:
I think actually just going, just playing off of what you were saying about, “Should we change the name because of the opera,” or whatever, I think, I feel like it’s almost you’re reconstructing it to fit what it means to you, as a sense of reclaiming that, because of the heavy whitewashing and constructive matter that it was in. But there’s just so much more to it than what people are used to seeing. And I think it creates such a broader perspective. That’s something that can be explored and explained. So I feel like it still pretty much fits it, but it’s just a matter of, it’s definitely being radical in that idea that yes, this is what it is, and we’re proud to use it that way and this is how we view it.
Rocky Jones:
Yeah, I was, I guess I must have been eight or nine years old, and my mother actually went to Howard University and one of her sorority sisters was Jesse Norman, so. I know, I know, my one little bit of nepotism. And so [inaudible] giving a concert at the Kennedy Center and we went, and my little eight year old mind was just blown, sitting there in the audience and there’s the Jesse Norman doing her Jesse Norman thing, blowing everyone’s wigs back. And then after the show, now she’s talking to my mom and she was saying hi to me and what, what’s going on? And that was the moment where I was just like, “Oh, cool. Oh, so we can do this. Not only humans can do this, but humans that look like me can do this.”
And so that is one of those formative moments that, for me, I grew up just feeling like, “Oh yeah, this is a thing for me. This is a space for me.” And so I really want to be able to create that for other folks. Representation is just so important. It just, it can change our… That’s the reason we’re all in this space together. At some point, opera or classical music or just music, just art, changed our lives, changed the trajectory of all of our lives. And so I just want to be a part of that. And I just think, to everyone’s point, opera just has this incredible collaborative sense, and it can be radical. And so whatever we want to call it, if we want to call it opera, if we don’t want to call it opera, whatever, but that bringing people together to me is the most exciting thing.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
So the name of our panel today, it’s a long one, but there’s a part of it that I’m particularly drawn to and I want to ask everyone. Giving voice. And I would like, you’ve all given beautiful voice today, but I would like to ask for more. But when you hear the term giving voice, and I’d to ask the question, is there anything that you would like to give voice to today more than you already have, or is there a way that you would like to give voice?
Debi Wong:
I’m thinking a lot about what I need to do to lift up the next generation of arts leadership. And there’s a lot of times when I just want to be like, “Yeah, I’m done here. I just, I need to go to bed,” but then I look at the artists that are coming up, the generation behind me, and even though I might be stuck in these spaces that just are exhausting, I’m happy and joyful to be there, because I want those spaces to transform and I want to open and create and build new spaces for the next generation of racialized artists to thrive and grow and create within. So I want to give voice to those amazing arts leaders, those mentors, the younger generation of mentors that I feel reflect to me what I need to see in the world and in the future, so that’s what I’m giving voice to.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
And Debi, you do that every day as an arts leader. That is what, you are the embodiment of giving voice, so I just want to acknowledge the work, the tireless and extremely, very exhausting work that you do. So big ups to you, Debi.
Dawn Pemberton:
I think I feel very committed to just, like you said, lifting up younger performers. But I feel like it’s this intense, I don’t know, life or death thing for me right now where it’s just, I think it’s really important for people to know how capable they are and how much power they have to impact the world. And I was working with a group of young singers, I don’t know, the other day, what is time? And they were very skilled singers, just singing their faces off.
But there was just this theme of not claiming space and not stepping into their power. And I was like, “Yo, what are you doing? Stop that right now.” I’m telling you, just you being here is you, you are worthy. I felt angry. I felt very angry. Not at them, but just that they grew up in a world that told them that they were powerless and that they had nothing to offer, and that what they were giving was never going to be good enough. And I was like, “Fuck that. Stop it. Just stop. It’s a choice.” We’ve been told one thing, and that’s all eyes. And it’s a choice to be impactful. It’s a choice that we can really turn it up and tear shit down and knock people out with our voices and with our artistry, so, sorry, I feel very excited about that.
Debi Wong:
Yes. That’s how I feel when you sing, by the way, when I hear you sing.
Rocky Jones:
I think what’s been on my mind a lot lately, so in 2019, I was getting a lot of questions from folks that were like, “Why do we need to come into work and talk about our identities? How does that contribute to an equitable opera?” And I was just like, and so I set out to never have to answer that question ever again. And created a document which we call our diversity charter, which commits our company to being an anti-racist and anti-oppressive opera company, which is the first, as far as I’m aware, of its kind anywhere. And so really since that was ratified unanimously in 2020, it went through the whole legislative process through the company, my job has really been figuring out how to implement that and really what does that actually mean and what does that look like?
And I think right now, I’m coming to the realization that it doesn’t mean an opera that’s free from racism entirely, unfortunately, but it does mean an opera where we are acknowledging the racism. We are interrogating that racism again and again and again, and providing space for more opportunities for global majority, minoritized folks to come in and create, that we’re auditing our systems and procedures and rules and whatnot. And that we’re actually, I feel like the next frontier of this work after two years of COVID, this mass disabling event, is we’re going to have a whole bunch of people who are going to be disabled coming up for the next couple of years. And the next frontier is really, “How do we tackle that, how do we think about that?” And how do we create more accessible spaces for those folks, so a lot, but that’s what’s on my mind lately a lot.
Morgan-Paige Melbourne:
So I’m definitely thinking quite a bit of authenticity and representation, representing authenticity, and not being afraid to show that, because I’ve experienced having to hide myself for quite some time, either to please others, ’cause having to unlearn people pleasing, that’s definitely one thing that took a long time and allowing myself to be how I am and who I am in my truest form, whether it’s through my music and how I interpret that, how I communicate with others, what it is that I expect for myself. I want to be able to share that with others and see that that’s something that you can do.
And you hold so much value within that. You shouldn’t have to be afraid to be your most authentic self. There is so much power that you can wield in that, and you can manipulate it however you want to to fit what it is you need for yourself and you take that space and you go for it. Because actually, yeah, I definitely can relate to Dawn. And when seeing people just not too sure of what’s happening, it’s like, “You have so much to give and I want to see you do that.” And it’s heartbreaking. It’s really heartbreaking. And it’s, I feel like as of right now, that’s probably something that’s definitely on my mind.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
Well, one thing I would love us all to do somehow is to give voice together. And I’m wondering if I could request Dawn, maybe to sing just one note and then we could all close our eyes and sing with Dawn together, just for a moment. Just to have that experience. I have a strong feeling that it will be a special experience, so.
Dawn Pemberton:
Definitely.
Ashley Daniel Foot:
So if, Dawn, if you can do the honor, then we’ll take a listen, and then we’ll do our best to join in.
Dawn Pemberton:
Okay. (Singing).
Ashley Daniel Foot:
If you can sing another harmony note with it, that’s fine too. Just breathe whenever you need.
Dawn Pemberton:
(singing)
Ashley Daniel Foot:
Oh, my goodness. What a special moment to be able to be there in Black Strathcona, Hogan’s Alley with Debi Wong and Morgan Paige Melbourne and Dawn Pemberton and Rocky Jones, as we talked about all of those incredible things. Thanks for listening inside Vancouver Opera. We’ll be back soon with more stories behind the curtain and interrogating our art form. I’ll see you at the opera.
