Stunning sisterhood

After four months of rehearsing on Zoom, Lansing-based poetry collective Voices of the Revolution and San Francisco-based composer and pianist Adrienne Torf held their first in-person rehearsal Saturday (Nov. 4) in East Lansing.

“It was amazing,” Tari Muñiz, a local poet and founding member of the collective, said of the rehearsal. “It left us vibrating. It left us breathless.”

The performance, taking place 7:30 p.m. Friday (Nov. 10), will headline day one of the 38th annual Women in the Arts Festival, which runs 5 to 9 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Saturday (Nov. 11) at Edgewood United Church in East Lansing. The festival will also offer an Artist Market and a café on both days as well as music, dance and spoken-word performances noon to 5 p.m. Saturday and a screening of the film “All Wigged Out: The Musical” 6 p.m. Saturday.

Voices is a collective of six poets — all women, all lesbians — some of whom have been performing together since the first Women in the Arts Festival. They formed the group in 2018. 

Their joint undertaking with Torf celebrates another partnership: the 2003 album “Collaboration,” which is the culmination of Torf’s 19-year artistic collaboration with her late life partner, poet June Jordan.

When Jordan and Torf first began working together in the early 1980s, they had to do so remotely. The two women were on opposite coasts — Torf in California, Jordan in New York — so they communicated by mail and phone.

Jordan would start to draft “a first pass” of a poem, Torf said, and she would send it through the mail. Torf would then record her first pass at the music onto an audio cassette and mail it back. After receiving the mail, they would “get on the phone and talk through it.”

“Something had to come first,” Torf said — either words or music — but “the impetus for it often came out of our shared life experience.”

The catalyst for the collaboration between Voices and Torf was Susan Frazier, a longtime manager of local music distributor Goldenrod Music and a member of the Women in the Arts Festival’s planning committee.

Muñiz said that when Frazier approached her and asked if she thought Voices could perform “Collaboration,” she said yes without asking anyone else.

It is by far the most ambitious project the collective has taken on, Muñiz said. 

“We quickly realized that, out of the six poets, we do not have a singer among us. There is a strong gospel component to the album,” she said.

So, the group invited local singers Shelia Burks and Rose Jangmi Cooper to join in on the performance.

The result is “just stunning,” Muñiz said.

“The six of us, our relationship has been based on love and respect forever. But in welcoming Shelia and Rose, the respect and admiration has just intensified,” she said.

She described an overpowering feeling of sisterhood.

“To be on stage with these women, to literally have their backs and to step up to the mic and feel the power of these women behind me, it’s unlike anything else,” she said.

When Torf recalled the moment Frazier suggested the collaboration with Voices, she said, “I have to admit, I winced emotionally at first because this (album) was June and me, very much so.”

But a positive experience working with the cast of a Washington, D.C.-based theater’s production of “Poetry for the People: The June Jordan Experience” primed Torf to hear “June’s words coming through other people in a staged setting.” It was “comforting and very heartening,” she said.

And, if she had any doubts, “As soon as we started to work on this material over Zoom, I realized that this was going to be fabulous,” she said. “They are consummate professionals. They totally understand the poetry, and they have done a phenomenal job of learning the material. We’ve had a wonderful opportunity to have conversations where I can provide them with context so that they have a fuller understanding of what June was writing.”

From “Collaboration,” the Black members of the nine-person group will perform the four-part “Freedom Now Suite,” which dramatizes moments both triumphant and tragic from the civil rights movement.

 Laurie Hollinger will perform “Song of the Law Abiding Citizen (So Hot).” Romantic partners Muñiz and Kim Griffin will take on the fun, exaggerated pearl-clutching of “Interracial Marriage” as a duet.

The program also includes poems by the late playwright and poet Ntozake Shange, performed by local poet Ruelaine Stokes, and civil rights advocate Kimberlé Crenshaw, performed by Griffin. In addition, there will be readings of original poems by Voices members Lisa Sarno and Harris.

The material is heavy, Muñiz admitted.

Torf said, “We will be talking about racism and misogyny and violence against women.”

As such, according to Muñiz, the group has been “mindful about explaining the content because we certainly do not want to hurt anyone with the messages that we are sharing. We’ve been telling folks, ‘Care for yourself as a part of this.”

The way Torf’s music “envelops” Jordan’s words and listeners alike, Muñiz said, may help audiences better receive some of the more confronting messages. She praised Torf’s mindful crafting of the setlist “so there is some room to catch your breath in between” some of the pieces.

Torf added, “The music enhances, it amplifies, it further illustrates what’s written in the poetry. I think that after some of the pieces, it’s important for people in the audience to have an opportunity to synthesize within themselves what they have just experienced. Music can help with that.”

Following Stokes’ performance of Shange’s poem, which straightforwardly addresses abuse, Torf will perform an original piece on piano called “Things I Cannot Say.” She said she hopes “that it will help people feel safe, in a way, to create an atmosphere of safety or sanctuary.”

Collaborations like these remind Torf that “June’s life work and legacy are very much alive. Her audience has been exponentially growing over the 20 years since she passed away.”

“Much of what June and I wrote, thanks to both her prescience and her astute understanding … means that this material is as relevant today as it was when it was written,” she said. “We need to keep hearing these words. We need to keep saying these words.”