A Queerly Joyful Noise by Julia "Jules" Balén

Author:Julia "Jules" Balén [Balén, Julia "Jules"]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780813588407
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Published: 2017-11-10T00:00:00+00:00

Figure 4.6. 1993 GALA Leadership conference cover.

When asked in surveys and interviews and in conversations and workshops, LGBTIQA chorus members in the United States and Europe report that their choruses serve as support groups, nonreligious spaces for spiritual experience and expression, and places for excelling both individually and as a team (this latter seemingly a stronger emphasis in the United States than in Europe). The choruses help develop pride in members and their communities. In the process of developing choral members’ voices individually and as a group, as well as performing a variety of regular and repeated voicings of queer experiences as human experiences, the evidence shows that they not only support members to develop leadership skills that carry over into other work for social change but regularly create spaces for creative counterstorying.

Chorus missions articulate visions and goals that range from assimilationist to radical around sexual and gender norms. Finding the balance between art and activism in organizations that attempt to engage both to varying degrees creates ongoing tensions, with some choruses emphasizing one over the other. In order to deal with such differences among members or to incorporate versions of gender/sexuality that might not be as comfortably taken on by the whole group, choruses might split or develop ensembles to perform material that might be more musically and/or ideologically challenging. Interestingly, the ways in which choruses tend to creatively deal with these tensions suggest richer possibilities in queering culture through the use of choral musicking than might be possible in the realms of religion or sports.

Clearly choral music production has been a compelling way for many to organize for social change. Almost all the mission statements of choruses and the umbrella organizations spell out variations on several important elements: building community, strengthening voices, and providing outreach for greater social justice. As with all the cultural organizing outlined here, building community plays an important role because that is one of the primary forms that the oppression of queer people has taken: first through the legal and sometimes violent denial of the right to gather (expressed again in the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando, Florida) and the concurrent cultural stories that deny the existence of any such community or right to community. The choruses use a social form, choral musicking, that is foundationally communal and produces beauty in the service of protest, healing, and community embodied all in the same moment. There is a reason tears mixed with smiles are a common response in the choral performances and festivals.

So many times in interviews, people choked up and struggled for words to express just how important their choruses were to them. One need only check out the YouTube video “GALA—Songs of Courage” for examples of how readily people are moved to tears when trying to articulate what their choruses mean to them.26 A number of important themes are repeated throughout my interviews with chorus members, directors, and audience members about how participants view the power of queer choral musicking. Shane, a singer

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