{"id":10642,"date":"2022-04-18T17:41:40","date_gmt":"2022-04-18T21:41:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/?p=10642"},"modified":"2022-07-06T18:02:50","modified_gmt":"2022-07-06T22:02:50","slug":"jennifer-koh-davone-tines-premiere-everything-rises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/jennifer-koh-davone-tines-premiere-everything-rises\/","title":{"rendered":"Jennifer Koh & Dav\u00f3ne Tines Premiere ‘Everything Rises’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Everything
Photo courtesy of UCSB by David Bazemore<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When violinist Jennifer Koh and bass-baritone Dav\u00f3ne Tines\u2019s paths crossed, they saw in each other an ally struggling with the same issue: being an artist of color in a culture dominated by whiteness. Everything Rises is a record and artistic product of that mutual encounter, and their collective exploration leads them to their family histories, sharing stories of Jennifer\u2019s mother Gertrude Soonja Lee Koh\u2019s experiences of the Korean War and immigration to the U.S., as well as Dav\u00f3ne\u2019s grandmother Alma Lee Gibbs Tines\u2019s \u00admemories of anti-Black discrimination and violence. Over the span of the numerous years that Everything Rises<\/em> has been in development, there has been a new surge of activism against racist violence targeting Black and Asian \u00adAmericans. Inspired by the recent outpouring of support and solidarity across racial identities, the work proposes a united front through music. Everything Rises<\/em> is an original evening-long staged musical work about connection and resonance. Jennifer Koh and Dav\u00f3ne Tines use music, projections, and actual interview recordings to tell the store of their artistic journeys and family histories. While they have been forced to \u201ccode-switch\u201d to operate within the \u00adpredominantly white institutions of classical music, they discover a more authentic sense of self by diving into their family histories. This project was developed over multiple years by an all-BIPOC creative team and received its world premiere in April 2022 at UC Santa Barbara Arts & Lectures.<\/p>\n

CRITICAL ACCLAIM<\/strong>
\n\u201cBy deftly weaving together first-person video and audio from their ancestors with blunt lyrics and \u00adpowerful music in songs like \u201cA Story of the Moth\u201d and \u201cAlma\u2019s Song,\u201d Koh and Tines stripped away the convention of polite distance between performers and their audience. The refrain \u201cdear white people\u201d in \u201cMoth\u201d hit particularly hard, imbued with an acidic irony. \u201d
\nThe Santa Barbara Independent<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

By the end, \u201cEverything Rises\u201d departs from the white-dominated space of the opening with the aim, Tines said, of \u201creclaiming agency.\u201d He and Koh \u00adperform a duet about how they are connected, and how this project \u201callows us to see each other.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s about creating a new space,\u201d Koh said. \u201cAnd \u00adhopefully what we\u2019re doing in this work will open space for people of color to tell more truth. It\u2019s everybody\u2019s loss, including classical music, if stories from people that are not like us are not heard.\u201d
\nThe New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n

“Every creative decision contributed to the formation of a safe stage for marginalized artists\u2013the lighting accentuated the innate beauty of the performer\u2019s bodies; the matching floor-length, loose black dresses afforded the performers the freedom to move in space and into authenticity…Everything Rises is a bold reminder that art and music is not immune to the power dynamics and patterns of oppression present across society, and that great art can empower marginalized voices to speak, or rather, to sing their truth. Projects as emotional and personal as this one are taxing to both the performers and the audience. However, the alternative\u2013 projects that stifle one\u2019s identity to appeal to a faceless crowd or pretend everything is fine when it\u2019s not\u2013is not one that anyone should be subjected to. Koh and Tines masterfully demonstrate that it is possible to reject this alternative mode of performance, etching out a more compassionate, more authentic mode of sharing classical music.”
\nAsia Pacific Arts<\/a><\/p>\n

“Everything Rises is a work of such originality and, at the same time, a so deeply personal exploration of identity by both Koh and Tines that it is challenging to describe…As classical performers, both live with the challenge of presenting as distinctive individuals while performing as part of a collective and under another\u2019s direction. As persons of color in the classical world and in American society, they have succeeded at code switching \u2013 but at what cost? Everything Rises, which was developed with an all BIPOC creative team, represents a musical declaration of self, an acknowledgement of past and present racism, and hope for a better future…Perhaps the most haunting moment in the performance is when Tines performs \u201cStrange Fruit\u201d the Abe Meeropol-Milt Raskin song about lynching popularized by Billie Holiday. Koh plays fast and furious at first, angry discordant notes coalescing into careful accompaniment as Tines slowly intones the words of the song: \u201cBlack bodies hangin\u2019 from the poplar trees\u2026..\u201d As Tines\u2019 dirge-like declamation gathers strength, Koh\u2019s playing becomes more lyrical \u2013 electronic beats fill in and Tines\u2019 voice becomes sweeter describing \u201cthe fruit for the crows to pluck\u2026 the strange and bitter crop\u2026. A strange and bitter cry.\u201d And just as this beautiful song tells an awful truth, Koh and Tines\u2019 acknowledgement carries with it a spirit of solidarity. Tines calls out to \u201cthe better angels of our nature\u201d as Everything Rises ends on a note of uplift (literally and figuratively) as Koh and Tines sit beside each other on stage…it stands as an expression of two artists finding their voice. And in doing so, it makes one consider all that we suppress in order to pass personally and professionally in the world.”
\nForbes<\/a><\/p>\n

“Ken Ueno\u2019s score is subtly chant-like, serving less to announce itself as to empower the performers on their effortful path to self-expression…What we first notice in Koh and Tines is their extraordinary communicability. Violin and voice speak with an eloquence and power worth knowing about.”
\nThe Los Angeles Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When violinist Jennifer Koh and bass-baritone Dav\u00f3ne Tines\u2019s paths crossed, they saw in each other an ally struggling with the same issue: being an artist of color in a culture dominated by whiteness. Everything Rises is a record and artistic product of that mutual encounter, and their collective exploration leads them to their family histories, … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10665,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7176,7175,7178,4436,7177,3731,3669],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10642"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10642"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10668,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10642\/revisions\/10668"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/10665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}