“Voices of Mannahatta” at the Church of Ascension | written by VENUS (Colton Kendig)
“Holy Ground” composed by Danielle Jagelski with visuals by Sage Ahebah Addington. Kirsten Kunkle, Soprano; Dylan Aguayo, Tenor; Bo Shimmi, Tenor; Colleen Bernstein, Percussion; Samantha Martin, Soprano; Damian Norfleet, Baritone. Photo from Four/Ten Media
Sprinting toward the High St. Brooklyn Bridge (A,C) station, then down into its deep recesses, I became increasingly stressed about punctuality. Luckily I made the train. But I was tense, fidgeting my hands, checking the time on my phone, and watching the screen tick off each and every stop as we hurtled to our respective locations. Finally my stop arrived, I gathered myself and bolted out of the shiny metal worm.
Breaching the surface I found myself at the corner of 6th Avenue and West 8th Street.The wind had a slight chill to it which helped cool my increasingly sweaty form. Three blocks passed in a breeze and there I was standing in front of the Church of Ascension, a large symmetrical brick building with Gothic Revivalist architecture. I moved through the courtyard where the spirit of spring left their gifts, and into a warm wooden stairwell. I passed a smile and greeting to the woman scanning tickets and continued toward the main chamber whereupon entering, I was awe stricken. The chamber was grandiose - adorned with tile work, massive pillars, and a giant mural of “The Ascension” by John Lefarge. An usher found me and kindly but promptly guided me to my seat.
The performance began with I Remember It, My Land, a song by Chief Urie Ridgeway of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape tribe. Driven by the beat of a hand drum and the vocal accompaniments of Opalanietet Pierce from the Eagle Project, the song commanded the attention of the room, wiping thoughts and drawing the gaze of the crowd toward the chancel. A wave of chills encircled my body as the performance filled the chamber, reverberating off the walls to the beat of the drum.
As if on the breeze, a swell of angelic voices began to lift me from my chair and whisper the Vision Chant by Andrew Balfour. The song reminded me that the human voice may very well be the most beautiful instrument. It was then I noticed all the anxiety and stress accumulated in my rush for punctuality was gone and replaced with serenity, giving way for a space of absorption and rumination.
Raven Chacon’s Voiceless Mass was made to be heard inside of a cathedral. It began with a rumble. Long deep drones from the organ pulsed and I could feel it in my chest cavity. Within this ethereal space I was given room to drift with the sound of silky strings deep in their ways. An ambient, powerful guidance in thought.
The next piece Triumph of the euro-Christ by Cris Derksen using text from Joshua Whitehead’s poem, Mihkokwaniy, followed suit, flowing from the deep tones of Voiceless Mass. The choir began: “My Kokum has many names. The Indian woman. The Whitehead lady. A Saskatoon female. But my favorite is: the beauty queen; they never meant to call her beautiful. What they meant by beauty was: cheapdirtybrownprostitutedrugaddict-alcoholicfirewaterslut.”
The poem mourns the death of the speaker's grandmother, Rose Whitehead, a victim of domestic violence. It highlights the systemic issues of racism and violence against Indigenous women in Saskatchewan, where Rose’s death was sensationalized and her killer received a lenient sentence. The poem shares a reality of Native experience, and the systemic “sweeping under the rug” of our peoples and cultures throughout generations as we remember, we cherish, and we fight on.
Prayer For Mist also by Cris Derksen began as if intended to lift us further into transcendence with voices building in chant, “rainbows sparkling, twinkling, cleansing, water remembers.” The voices of the choir filled the cathedral. My eyes were pulled toward the grand mural towering above us all. I gazed toward it as if through a window looking out upon a grand landscape, fertile and full of hope. Voices swirling in a wave continuing, “rainbows sparkling, twinkling, cleansing, clearing, cleaning, smudge sage purifying, water remembers.”
Danielle Jagelski’s world premiere of Holy Ground was immense, a beautiful world of sounds portrayed through liquid flowing from hands into the basins below and the almost lottery like arpeggio of the vibraphone that accentuated the question, “Could I have been born to gentler soil?” Voices filled the air in operatic fashion, singing the hymns of poets into the heavens. The piece was written for five voices and percussion and is an effort to listen to this little plot of land - what the land has to say to those that inhabit her, and what we have to say in return. With text from Dakota/Lakota storyteller- Charli Fool Bear-Vetter, and poets E. Pauline Johnson, Walt Whitman, and AH Auden. The piece was accompanied with a video performance by Diné artist Sage Ahebah Addington whose work primarily focuses on found materials, cultural dissonance, and redirecting negative energies. Together, the music and video worked synergistically to entrance the audience and keep us focused as a growing orb of light unveiled itself at the altar. As we focused on this orb she began to show us visions, visions of land, flowing water, or even memories. The hits of a timpani mounted as the choir swelled, soaring ethereally, “the water I drink is my own, the water I drink is clean enough to water the ones I love.” For a moment I caught myself watching our conductor and her hands swaying with every sound. Guiding it, instilling emotions, and building the world around us. A jovial hymn sang forth, “I’m the soil, I’m the gardener, I’m the rain, I’m the sun. I am the sun, and gentle soil. I am the sun.” The voice of the choir ascended as if indeed they were for that moment, the sun. A feeling of clarity ensued: truthful, certain and bountiful. We are the caretakers of our respective cultures and communities. What we put in will be reflected.
The final piece of the evening We Are On Native Land by Brent Michael Davids was a collaborative piece to foster good relations with Native nations, and to acknowledge the genocides - and Indigenous survival - through song and choral performance. The piece is written with flexibility so that each performance of the song will be done so with the help of local Indigenous peoples, for this performance the text was written by The Mohican Writer’s Circle. The piece began with a powerful mounting staccato of voices bringing about feelings of strife and perseverance, it all gave way to a calm yet very real truth “we ARE on Native land.” We are vessels containing the memories of our ancestors, our culture and their experience. We are strong. Then like a strike of lightning, the hands of our conductor quivered, accompanying the built up tension and strikes of the timpani, to guide our sonic soundscape towards a calm clarity and resounding applause.
As the cheers of the crowd began winding down, the sound of the hand drum struck strong. The performers enveloped the crowd and together we all shared in a joyous moment, reveling in awe and admiration for the skill of our performers. I gave resounding congratulations and embraces to those I knew and left the cathedral with a new feeling of warmth, community, and excitement to grow.
Colton Kendig (aka VENUS) is a multifaceted artist with influence from across all genres of music, namely Rnb, Pop, electronic, dance, and alternative. Born in California, raised on the Big Island of Hawaii, and now residing in Brooklyn, NY (Lenapehoking). Venus has been working diligently to master his skill and ability to distill emotion into sound. Venus sites his influences as ranging from the likes of Lowell Leibermann, Sáde, and Amy Winehouse , to iamamiwhoami, james Blake, Travis Scott, and Fever Ray.