Celebrated for creating diverse, timely and relevant opera, activist performing arts company White Snake Projects (WSP) and its founder Cerise Lim Jacobs made an announcement today.
They announced the upcoming world premiere of Is This America? at Dorchester’s The Strand Theatre from Friday, September 20, to Sunday, September 22. This new 90-minute fully-staged opera celebrates the life and legacy of civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer. Is This America? features performances by the Massachusetts-based Victory Players chamber orchestra alongside a small ensemble of singers with the lead role of Ms. Hamer played by mezzo-soprano Deborah Nansteel (Met Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago). The composer, 84-year-old Mary D. Watkins, has blazed the trail for other Black women composers in the field of opera. Haitian American queer woman Pascale Florestal stage directs.
Is This America? brings to life one of the most turbulent periods in American history. It tells the story of Ms. Hamer, the great Mississippi activist who galvanized the registration of Black voters in her home state despite overwhelming odds, including death threats, beatings, and rejections by her own constituency. The title of the work is taken from the iconic speech Ms. Hamer made 60 years ago before the 1964 Democratic National Convention, when she petitioned the Convention to give her newly formed political party, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), seats at the Convention and to recognize the MFDP as the legitimate representative of the people of Mississippi. A year later President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlawed discriminatory voting practices.
“My goal is to show the dignity and strength with which Fannie Lou Hamer and her fellow civil rights workers carried themselves in spite of the terror and dehumanizing treatment they were subjected to and to convey the great spirit of love that bound them together. Their story deserves to be told in a grand way – a way befitting the souls of the people who marched in the streets in the hot sun with such determination, singing through their fears while their opponents spat upon them, beat them, kicked them, called them vile names, terrorized their families, and imprisoned them. Is This America? is my salute to these beautiful, courageous people. I chose to tell Fannie Lou Hamer’s story as an opera because I wanted to use an art form that would capture the power and sweep of her life. I wanted to give full voice to this amazing African-American female political leader.” — Composer MARY D. WATKINS
Is This America? is 15 years in the making. A chamber orchestra version was workshopped by the Oakland Opera Company in 2009. The first concert version was performed by the Mount Holyoke Symphony Orchestra in Massachusetts in 2014. This WSP production marks the second Watkins premiere with the company; it commissioned her virtual opera I Am A Lifer, which is part of Death by Life (2021), the Company’s musical response to the death of George Floyd.
Is This America? is part of WSP’s wide-ranging collection of performances and conversations centering the theme of “voting as freedom,” to highlight the 2024 Election Year. Seeking to foster civic engagement through artistic work, much of it co-created with the local Massachusetts community, WSP provides several platforms for underrepresented voices to be heard. Leading up to the opera premiere in September, WSP will host TALKS WITH TUNES: free community events at various Boston Public Library branches designed to begin a conversation (musical and oral) about Fannie Lou Hamer (schedule and details are below).
Mary D. Watkins (composer)
Mary D. Watkins is a prolific composer, arranger, producer, pianist, and recording artist. She has won critical praise and awards for her numerous symphonic works, film scores, songs, and pieces for classical and jazz instrumentalists. Soul of Remembrance is one of her most popular orchestral works. It has been recorded by the New Black Music Repertory Ensemble of Chicago (Albany Records 2009), and it has been performed recently by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, the Dallas Symphony, and many other orchestras. She has also composed three full-length operas on historical themes: Queen Clara (about Clara Barton, 2005); Dark River: The Fannie Lou Hamer Story (2009); and Emmet Till, the Opera (2019). She completed a segment of an opera about mass incarceration for White Snake Projects, which premiered online in May 2021.
Watkins has a degree in classical composition from Howard University, and she has composed both classical and jazz music, often fusing the styles and incorporating other forms of American music including gospel, spiritual, and pop genres. She won an Opera Grants for Women Composers by Opera America in 2020, and she has previously won composer fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Gerbode Foundation, Meet the Composer Foundation, California Arts Council and the City of Oakland. She received a 2021 Artist Legacy Award from the California Arts Council and she was recognized with a 2022 Composers Now Visionary Award. To learn more and watch video excerpts of her work, please visit MaryDWatkins.com.
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White Snake Projects
White Snake Projects (WSP) is an activist opera company making mission-driven work that unites artmaking with civic practice. It envisions a world where the power of opera expands our collective understanding of community and transforms lives through creative storytelling. The company’s most recent efforts have been devoted to the live digital productions of the Pandemic Trilogy: Alice in the Pandemic addressed the disproportionate strain of COVID-19 on communities of color and essential workers; Death by Life explored long-term incarceration and institutionalized racism; and A Survivor’s Odyssey dealt with the ongoing crisis of sexual and intimate partner violence. A critical element in the exploration of these themes is the establishment of authentic connections with thought leaders in social justice to ensure that the company’s creative work lives in an ecosystem of activism. WSP sees opera not just as performance, but as performance with purpose, a vibrant and vital art form that is also a champion of change. WhiteSnakeProjects.org
White Snake Projects’ 2023-24 programming is supported by a generous grant from the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Mass Cultural Council, the Boston Cultural Council, Reopen Creative Boston Fund, administered by the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture and the Ditson Fund.
As part of Boston Public Library’s “Revolutionary Music: Music for Social Change” year-long overview of how music has spurred social change in the United States, WSP presents its inaugural TALKS WITH TUNES series. Featuring discussion panels with experts alongside musical performances, TALKS WITH TUNES takes place at multiple BPL branches around Greater Boston. These Fall 2024 events, Recreating Fannie Lou Hamer’s World, will comprise panelists from the opera’s production team as well as sneak peek performances of the opera.
For more program and ticketing information go to Tix go to purchase, visit WhiteSnakeProjects.org
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