Image via Skylight Music Theatre
Music is among the distinct contributions to American culture made by its Black citizens. As early as the 19th century, rhythms and voices, forcibly transplanted from West Africa, coalesced in African American settings and captured the ears and imagination of hearers. Without Black performers, most of the music considered uniquely American would never have existed. Without them, no ragtime, no gospel, no blues, no Dixieland or swing, no R&B, no rock and roll, no hip-hop. And without those genres, music from Dvorak through The Rolling Stones would have gone a different direction (or not existed at all).
Witnessing to this history is the upcoming performance by Skylight Music Theatre, “Forgotten Voices: Unearthing the Roots of American Music.” The show is an original production, conceived in a meeting between Skylight’s Artistic Director Michael Unger and the show’s writer-director, Sheri Williams Pannell, and music director-curator, Christie Chiles Twillie. Twillie worked with musicologist Paschal Younge, the Ghanaian-born codirector of Ohio University’s African Ensemble, to authentically render the cultural roots.
The music heard in “Forgotten Voices” begins in West Africa and moves forward to present-day America. “The cross-section of songs and artists were selected by landmark moments in time when a new style emerged,” says Twillie. “The influence on non-black artists is shown by presenting their songs in between so you can hear what was borrowed.” Scott Joplin, Duke Ellington, Sister Rosetta Tharp, Chuck Berry, Steve Wonder, Jimi Hendrix and The Supremes are among the Black artists whose songs will be recalled. Juxtaposed with that music are numbers by white artists from AC/DC through Nirvana to highlight the influence of African American music.
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Twillie and Pannell are familiar names to Skylight audiences. The cast will also be recognizable to Milwaukee theatergoers, including Cecilia Davis, Shawn Holmes, Tasha McCoy, Kevin James Sievert and Bill Jackson. “Forgotten Voices” is a sung and spoken performance enhanced by video. “The emphasis is on the text, lyrics, instrumental performances and images, so we have kept the scenic design simple,” Pannell explains. “The singers will wear a combination of contemporary clothing with West African accents. There will be a theatrical aspect to the performance featuring the spoken word.”
The spoken word aspect is built around a 10-part poem by Pannell, who will also perform the reading. “My intention is to take the audience on a musical odyssey,which begins on the coast West Africa, through the Middle Passage, to the eastern shore of the United States and follow the migration of Black people across the U.S.,” she says. “As we journey, we will acknowledge the root of various genres of popular music performed in the United States. The music of Black Americans has and continues to bless this country and the world."
The 90-minute production was recorded live before a small audience at Skylight’s elegant Cabot Theatre and will be streamed from June 19—Juneteenth Day—through July 18.
What do the creators of “Forgotten Voices” hope the audience will take away from the performance?
“When Africans came to this country as enslaved people, they were stripped of everything except what they could share through oral traditions. The existing template of language and music played in America was based on Western European traditions.” Twillie says.
But, she continues, “Those rigid and foreign parameters could not support what was known and remembered from Africa; so during the struggle to survive and to hold on to something, my ancestors constantly inserted what was innate to them when it came to music; the song format, the dancing, the, call and response, the crying out, melismatic passages and the embedded polyrhythms, altered scales and grooves were all part of their life and who they were.”
This music was a way of maintaining dignity, telling stories, overcoming adversity and expressing solidarity as well as defiance. Pannell adds, “We must honor the forgotten voices, speak the names of the Black people upon whose talent and giftedness American music is founded.”
Tickets for “Forgotten Voices” are free but registration is required and donations are appreciated. For more information, visit skylightmusictheatre.org.
