It will look like you - Score, Cello Parts, (PDF Edition)

Program Note:

             This work was created by six people, brought together by 2020's Stonewall Protests. The five authors of the text all answered the same question: "What does liberation look like to you?" 

             The music begins in a nebulous, disparate place, that slowly barrels forward into cohesion and newly found consciousness, accompanied by text from Qween Jean. The second movement drives forward in proclamation of self-expression without explanation, with text by Neptunite Roa. Thirdly and from a place of exhaustion comes a mantra from Rohan Zhou-Lee: "when the colonial state collapses, when we have learned to truly take care of each other, we will not rest because we have to fight again. We will rest because we truly can." Calling on the fact that it is effortless to recreate systemic, oppressive power structures after their collapse if we deny ourselves of the necessary internal work.

            The title of this piece, "It will look like you," comes from the fourth movement's text by Rebecca Wu-Norman, as a reminder to break cycles of consumption as the power is already in our hands. These 12 walls of harmony that waterfall down and crescendo forward might invoke images of seemingly isolated movements throughout our history (Indigenous sovereignty in the Americas, Haiti, the Philippines, South Africa, Palestine, Puerto Rico), slowly conglomerating into a picture of interconnected, intersectional resistance, only if we begin to truly see ourselves involved in the struggles of others. Even in this performance space, we are literally asked to be spectators, watch others do something in front of us, but we are the only ones who will grant ourselves liberation. 

We are used to [spectacles] in which the characters make the revolution on stage, and the spectators in their seats feel themselves to be triumphant revolutionaries. 'Why make a revolution in reality if we have already made it in the theater?'  [...] Instead of taking something away from the spectator, evoke in them a desire to practice in reality [an] act he has rehearsed for in the theater. The practice of these theatrical forms creates a sort of uneasy sense of incompleteness that seeks fulfillment through real action. 

-Augusto Boal, Theatre of the Oppressed 

            The fifth and final movement, with text by Shawn Batey, elaborates on the dance of simultaneously liberating the self and liberating the collective. As the music moves through gestural walking, pacing, struggling, rising, we end in the high-range musical space where we began, more intentional, enlightened, and aware.

            If someone were to hit "repeat" on the entire piece, we could acknowledge that these five ideas of liberation exist in a constant cycle: 1. Cohesion, 2. Understanding of the self, 3. Understanding systems, 4. Making connections and gathering impetus, and 5. Maintaining awareness and holding space for others. These conversations move in something like an upward spiral, constantly and non-linearly interrogated and shaped. Toni Morrison says, "The function of freedom is to free someone else," and as our internal and external liberatory journeys continue to expand, space must be made for those who still need to be brought into the fold, emphasizing that liberation must be a constant practice, not a one-time (musical) journey.