Singing What They Know

Personal stories rosy and horrific were transformed into a song cycle being premiered this weekend by the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus.

by Michael Anthony, Star Tribune, March 19, 2004

The first rehearsal of "Metamorphosis," the choral work that will be premiered tonight by the Twin Cities Gay Men's Chorus, was a tense moment for Dwight Joyner, a Minneapolis businessman who has been a member of the chorus, off and on, for the past 17 years.

The work's text is made up of stories contributed by the singers - personal tales about loneliness, isolation, the fear of being different and, ultimately, as the work reaches its conclusion, finding solace through self-acceptance and membership in a community.

Joyner's story is told in "Tidy Endings," the ninth of the work's 11 sections. While sorting out the possessions of an older brother who has just died, the narrator reflects on his troubled relationship with his brother. Differences and rivalries - gay brother vs. straight-had been healed, more or less. What remained was the painful task of creating order, of making tidy endings.

"I broke down, crying," Joyner recalled about that first rehearsal. "I had spent the prior 24 hours in great anxiety because of how important this piece had become to me. And I still cry during it."

He has arranged, in fact, to step off­stage quietly when the number comes up in the performances this weekend. "I miss my brother," he said. Joyner and his family contributed much of the funding that has brought "Metamorphosis" to life. Robert Seeley wrote the music, and Robert Espindola created the text, drawing on nearly 100 stories that were offered by chorus members.

The 45-minute work, which features the James Sewell Ballet in dance episodes, will be performed three times this weekend at Ted Mann Concert Hall. It will be repeated in July in Montreal , where the chorus will participate with 110 other ensembles in the International Gay and Lesbian Choruses Association Festival VII (GALA).

Stan Hill, artistic director of the Twin Cities chorus since 2000, came up with the idea of "Metamorphosis" four years ago, after a GALA festival. He wanted to present a new commissioned work in Montreal , and he wanted the piece to be made up of the singers' stories, rather the way the Broadway musical "A Chorus Line" is composed of dancers' stories. He had worked with Seeley and Espindola during his years running the San Francis­ co Gay Men's Chorus.

PUTTING IT TOGETHER

Seeley and Espindola, partners who live in Palm Springs, Calif., spent a week last winter with Hill listening to the singers tell their tales in all- day sessions.

"The stories ranged from the kid who has everything-the parents accept him and everything is rosy-to some of the most horrific stories I've ever heard," Hill said, "stories about abuse, about being thrown out of the house and total alienation from the family. Some of these guys were really baring their souls."

Listening to the stories, Hill noted two themes: the men's relationship to their church, which some of them had left, and the psycho-dynamics of families. "Many of them came from tiny farms with large families," he said. "They grew up feeling they were the only people in the whole world who felt like they did."

One of the singers had written about his life as a metamorphosis, which became not just the title of the work but the basis for a structure. The stages of biological development - egg, larva, pupa, adult-became a metaphor for human growth, from fear to self-realization and love. The notion of flying in the final song, "I Can Fly," suggests affirmation ("content within myself/ and who I am").

Espindola, a psychologist, teacher and ordained minister who spent six months creating the work's text, was struck by how different the stories were from those of singers in San Francisco and in Dallas.

"The singers in Minneapolis , whether it's due to the communities in which they live or whether it's self-imposed, many still live - relatively-in the closet," he said. "I talked to teachers from Minneapolis who were afraid to declare themselves."

The other difference he noted is that many more Midwestemers have remained members of the church they grew up in than is the case among gay men on the West Coast.

"They've had to give up or sacrifice or change so much that religion may be the thing they hold on to," Espindola said.

Hill said the musical style of "Metamorphosis" sits somewhere between opera and popular idioms such as the "popera" of Josh Groban. The chorus will record the work here next weekend for commercial release in June.

What would he like his audience to take away from a performance of "Metamorphosis"? That audience, he said, drawing from a survey conducted in December, is 51 percent straight.

"I think they're going to come to terms with some personal insights that they may not have had before," Hill said. "People are going to recognize themselves in some of these stories."