As the horror and violence in so many parts of the world continues (#ceasefirenow), we begin a new year. And I am – selfishly? hopefully? foolishly? belatedly? once again – choosing a keyword to stand in for resolutions or goals and to help subtly steer my personal and artistic lives for the year.

My keyword for 2022 was CHOOSE.

I CHOSE not to write a blog post about it.😉 (And then worked hard to let go of any guilt about that decision.) I was still finding my way back to art-making and performing after the pandemic shutdowns in 20202 and Covid resurgences in 2021. I picked CHOOSE because I wanted to be intentional about the projects and singing I was doing moving into a new year.

For 2023, I picked EXPLORE.

If you’ve spent time on my blog, you know I can have trouble getting started on new projects and ideas. I had a composition centered around grieving and some other musical projects in mind that I kept letting sit on my musical back burners. With EXPLORE, I wanted to gently push myself to think about how – and with whose help – I might further develop these undertakings.

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This year’s word was gifted to me during the winter concert of my friends Sara Thomsen and Paula Pedersen. During the concert, Sara was talking about her mom’s labors to decorate the house for their holidays when Sara was a kid. How hard her mom worked to create a sense of wonder. (My mom did similar feats and labor.) Sara added that now that she’s an adult she realized that, “wonder takes work!”

And, I’ve been ruminating on wonder and the work it involves ever since.

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My keyword for 2024 is WONDER.

wonder (n) – a feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar or inexplicable.

wonder (v) – desire to know or to be curious about something; feel doubt.

That feeling of the unexpected entwined with the inexplicable is one of the things that keeps me coming back to improvising again and again. Wondering has initiated a lot of my art over the years through asking myself (and sometimes others) questions.

• Way back in 2006, I wondered if I could get people to come sing and practice improvising with me on a regular basis and Songtaneous was born.

• A few years ago, I wondered if I could write an album’s worth of original music. So in 2017, I spent a bunch of Friday afternoons writing and then gathered a cohort of musicians and improvisers to record What the Music Says Do.

• In the summer of 2022 while on an artist retreat, I began wondering if the sounds we make as we express sorrow help us to digest and transmute grief? And could I create a composition that incorporated these sounds? And would such a composition help us hold grief communally? With the help of some funding from Metro Regional Arts Council, I’m getting to spend some time finding out.

• Most recently, I wondered if I could produce an anniversary release of my first improvised composition, Between: A Journey Through the Middle. I’ve got a lot to do but the concert celebrating the release is March 2nd. (Hop on my Sarah Sings email list if you want updates.😉🎶)

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Every time I dive deep into a new project or step into an improvising space, I wonder what to do and how, with whom and when? I wonder if it will work and what I’ll learn when it does. And perhaps, more important, what I’ll learn when it doesn’t.

Finally, I’m wondering (when my heart is aching and the world is breaking 🎶) how to encourage and encounter more wonder. How can I discover more surprise, cultivate more caring, and experience more delight in the beautiful and unexpected world we live in?

As always, I am sending light and songs to all of us in this coming year. ✨🎶

I am at work on a composition centered on grieving and the sounds we make when we express sorrow. Part of this work involves my own search for activities and processes that let me sit with and experience my grief over the events of the past few years (not to mention the past few weeks).

Unsurprisingly, this path has been meandering and full of stops, and starts. In other words, improvised. 

One of the less obvious steps on my path to creating a musical composition* has been collecting posts and items from social media that, to me, are grief-related in some way. So for the past year or so, I have been saving tweets, texts, memes and other images in my phone. I did not know how – or if – I would use them; I simply knew that they were … connected. 

For a similar amount of time, I have been saving items that have broken around me — the mug my sister gave me for my birthday, a beaded necklace from a friend, the window of my car (which someone broke to go through my glove compartment), etc.. With my eye focused on grief and how we express it because of this composition, I having been taking notice of losses — even small ones – perhaps as stand-ins for the broken systems and events we are seeing all around us. Again, I didn’t know how, but I knew these broken things were connected to the piece I’m working to create.

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In mid-October, I was fortunate enough to spend a week in the woods for a self-directed mini-retreat. As I prepared for my week away, it came to me to create a “jar of broken pieces,” through which I would reimagine and realign these broken things I had been gathering into a new form. So I headed to the woods with my broken bits and a loose plan for how to reassemble them. (And if that isn’t a metaphor for processing grief, I don’t know what is.)

I arrived during the sweet pre-sunset light and went down to the lake to greet the water. I spent the evening unpacking and setting up my “office” for the week.

On my second night (after a dinner and a ride in the kayak), I began to seriously consider how to work with the jar. I realized that to do the jar work, I wanted (needed?) to create a grounding space out of all those digital items about grief and sorrow. So I pasted the images, memes, tweets, and texts into a document and printed them out on the black and white printer.

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The next afternoon (Day 3), I took my printouts and my broken things out to the porch and set up my camera so I could film myself assembling my jar. 

Once again intuition (spirit) spoke and directed me to embellish the printouts. I grabbed some crayons –pushed aside doubts about my drawing skills — and spent a couple of hours contemplating and embellishing the texts. After creating this “ground,” I recorded a short improvisation to visually and sonically document my progress. The next step was to fill the jar, but I knew I was done for the day. It was a gift to simply leave everything as it was and step away for the evening. I went for a walk, watched the sun set, had dinner and sent a video snippet of the day’s work to my mom and sister. 

Day 4 began with a long and roaming virtual visit with my mom and sis who provided thoughtful feedback and reflections about the video I had sent them. My sister remarked how I had invented a grief work process and confessed to tiny bit of envy that I had spend the day art-making. (We remarked how rarely Black women get time and space to digest grief and/or to make simply for making’s sake). This aligns with conversations I’ve had with other Black artists in the cities who are doing grief work. Another theme that comes up is the healing that happens as we work on creating the spaces and/or rituals that we intend to use with or gift to others.

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I returned to the porch in the late afternoon to assemble the jar — another improvisation. I had to continuously let go of my expectations of the finished result so I could appreciate the process (I found some sounds I might use in the composition) and let the jar become itself. After adding the broken pieces, I added my breath and voice to the jar and closed it. 

I envision visiting the jar and interacting with it as I work on my composition. I think the jar wants some ribbon or other decoration or perhaps adding water or oil or honey to feed(?) the jar. And, I already have some other broken items I plan to add the next time I visit. In the meantime, I left the jar to sit with a view of the woods and changing seasons.

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*This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.

A healing project with the Give Get Sistet

In May of 2021, some of the Sistetmembers were in the midst of a filming a song cycle to include in a commemoration of the lynching of Elias Clayton, Elmer Jackson and Isaac McGhie in Duluth in 1920.

As we prepared to film, police killed Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center. The discussions we had before and during our singing were deep, painful, and necessary. We recognized the balm of gathering as Black artists/singers to express and experience our reactions alongside the challenge of authentically experiencing these emotions while being watched/filmed. We began to envision singing together in places of wounding around the city.

In September of 2021, we were awarded a grant to create a Community Healing project through the city’s Creative Response Fund.

With this support, we serenaded places in Minneapolis.

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Powderhorn Park

“Anything healing that happens in the park ripples out and invites us to know ourselves, our nature and each other better.”

We held our final serenade as folks were readying the space for the 10 year Poetry & Pie event in Powderhorn park. We gathered around a picnic table off to the side to “set the stage” for this community event. Singer-songwriter Kashimana joined us.

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“Powderhorn Park is the heart of the Powderhorn community. It was a site of pain and activism, community organizing, and public engagement during and after the Uprising. Powderhorn Park is the place we center and recognize ourselves as community. Anything healing that happens in the park ripples out and invites us to know ourselves, our nature and each other better.” 

“For me today the sky set the tone for the day.  I felt free and loved and grateful to be with my Sistet family.  After such a long trip to get here, the serenading felt like it spoke to all my wounds and worn out places.”

“We did what need to be done. My favorite part was making the loops with Kashimana.”

“I was in need of healing today. Feeling exhausted and violated. Then my Sistahs took up my burden and sang to and for me and we found the way through and the bag came back. “

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Juneteenth  Serenades – North and Uptown Minneapolis

“The energy from these healing sessions reaches farther into the community than we thought.”

We joined folks celebrating Juneteenth at Sumner Library and sang to our community and our ancestors. Later, as we sang together at the Bridge for Youth Juneteenth event in uptown, a young volunteer at one of the tables at the event asked to sing with us.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=aKIOpzXaojk%3Ffeature%3Doembed

“We noticed the power of our intentions and the spaces we make for ourselves.”

“Windy and then hot
 We gave it all that we’d got
 Which is really quite a lot.”

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North High

When we were thinking of places to serenade, we decided we especially wanted to sing to and for the young folks at North Community High School who have had such a painful year.

(No vids ’cause they kids.)

“Love songs to teens who giggled and said we sounded amazing. Improv in the science wing. Loving on the super mad dude.”

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North Commons

“So many ways to occupy a space …”

We incorporated an online session (and an Instagram Live) into this Serenade, which included guest artist Tamiko French (@Soulspeak_Expressions) as wells a couple of guests from other states. We came together to be together in community. We used our voices, moved our bodies and left the painting of the heart in the park when we took our leave.

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“Missing my people. Loving my Northside. Adding my tears to others’, lifting up energy for healing and grace, expressing ourselves audibly, visibly, and spiritually — as we serenade and petition for wholeness — outside, with nature.”

“So many ways to occupy a space — even from hundreds of miles away. Thank you all for letting me join you in a healing morning.”

“Gathered under a soft gray sky with bare feet on the ground. Connecting across the miles. Sistahs and smiles and sounds and songs. MJ and memories and good times. Leaving our heart(s) there. Soft rain after to help the healing grow.” 

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Pillsbury Theater

“On today, the Sistet gathered at the site of an importantly devastating piece of art ‘performed’ by loved ones to sing and pray on that place.”

We gathered in the early morning to serenade the outdoor diorama (stage) for What to Send Up When it Goes Down* before they began their second run.

Part ritual and part theatrical experience, What to Send Up When It Goes Down is a fiercely innovative play that sets out to disrupt the pervasiveness of anti-Blackness and rejoice in the resilience of Black People throughout history. Using monologues, scenes, songs and discussion the play offers space for examination, reflection and ultimately a cathartic cleansing of harm caused by anti-Blackness that permeates us all.

We recognized and wanted to support the enormous and difficult healing work our community members were enacting as they presented that particular play at that time in that space. (Pillsbury Theater is only blocks from George Floyd Square.)

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“The Sistet blessed the altar with music and movement, and blessed the ritual makers with talismans and prayer.”
— Aimee

“Heard the stage/alter “over here, this way” – we followed. The sky opened up a clear view, I arched my back, felt big, small and peaceful. The seal is cracked, space is warmed up now.”
— Alicia

“My partner carried out the design of Uncle Seitu Jones diorama. We studied some symbols that we agreed would support the family (the Black thespians) that is carrying out this hard, beautiful piece. May it “ground” and support. So he added these symbols last night before the Sistet continued to bless support and protect, benediction & ready the space.” — Jayanthi

“Alicia and A were there when I arrived. The space felt quiet and still and the early morning light was sweetly illuminating  faces and the space. Then Kenna and Aimee, then Mankwe arrived; we greeted and hugged. A received incense training from Alicia and Kenna. We formed a circle and sang “I Remember, I Believe” (during which Aimee and I shed some tears). We began singing and moving thru the space individually, yet connected. We talked about warrior spirits and space/time to fight. The Pillsbury folks began to arrive. We greeted and assisted in small ways and then took our leaves.”
— Sarah

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Acknowledgements

Funding is provided by The Creative Response Fund, a program of the Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy in the City of Minneapolis and also in part by The Kresge Foundation.