The Utopia of This Place Called Home | Student Blog

In a 1982 letter, Tennessee Williams wrote, “We get people home; we let them know that we're here for them. This is what art can do. Art should be the arm and the shoulder and the kind eyes—all of which let others know you deserve to live and to be loved. That is what matters, baby. Bringing people home.”

In a world where our work is often degraded or attacked, it is a breath of fresh air to wake up in a place where everyone exudes belief in our craft. We already know the power of storytelling and artistic creation in the history of humanity.

Before I became an artist, I was an audience member. I have felt what it is like to be healed by a timely play, a profound melody, a powerful voice, or a liberating movement. I became an artist because I felt how my broken heart could be mended, how I could shake away my numbness and be challenged by uncomfortable questions, how I could face my demons, make sense of this world, dig deep into myself, connect with humanity, transform, engage, heal, gain hope.

Now, as I dig into my craft, I am still the same openhearted audience member when it comes to the incredible work of my colleagues. Let me share some of the highlights of the coming months.

Drama: Paradise Blue is around the corner. This play, written by Dominique Morisseau as part of her Detroit Project trilogy and performed by five storytellers from Group 49, follows jazz joint owner and musician Blue and his community in Black Bottom as the neighborhood is threatened by gentrification. The Drama Division said that “the soulful and heartbreaking cries of Blue’s jazz trumpet” underscores this “haunting drama”, and we know that there will be a live collaboration between Drama and Jazz. So my soul is already jumping with excitement.

Dance: New Dances will also premiere in December. This is an opportunity for dancers from all four years to work on new material, to establish a creative dialogue with innovative choreographers, to experiment with their bodies, test their strengths and give life for the first time to a role. I fell in love with this event last year. I specially remember the then-third-year dancers in their mind-blowing collaboration with Juilliard Jazz musicians in the piece Play Well With Others, choreographed by alumnus Peter Chu, and the then-first-years in Quilt, choreographed by Marcus Jarell Willis and inspired by 1970s interviews with women quiltmakers.

Vocal Arts: Talk about finding home in a faraway place! I am so excited about Vocals Arts’ participation in the New York Festival of Song at Juilliard: Cubans in Paris. According to the NYFOS website, the “young talents [will perform] “music straddling the concert hall, night club, and theater by Cuban expatriates living in Paris,” among them Moisés Simons and one of my favorite composers, Ernesto Lecuona. I adore Cuban music—the rhythm, the fusion of cultural traditions, the bodily experience. The 1920s and '30s were such a rich period for musicians such as Lecuona, Matamoros, Caturla, and for writers such as the wondrous Alejo Carpentier, all of whom had relocated to Paris.

Jazz: When I found out that Juilliard had established a two-year master's program for Jazz vocals, I was completely thrilled. In November, two Juilliard Jazz Ensembles and Juilliard Jazz singers presented a program called Jazz Singers of the Civil Rights Era, which showcased the work of wonderful artists such as Nina Simone, Bob Dorough, Abbey Lincoln, and Oscar Brown Jr.

New Music: Juilliard’s 2020 Focus Festival, Trailblazers: Pioneering Women Composers of the 20th Century, takes place on January. According to the press release, it commemorates “the women’s suffrage centennial and celebrates groundbreaking female composers” such as Sofia Gubaidulina, Thea Musgrave, Betsy Jolas and Jacqueline Fontyn. The festival is co-curated by Odaline de la Martinez and Joel Sachs and includes concerts the New Juilliard Ensemble and the Juilliard Orchestra as well as several chamber concerts.

It is an incredible to be in a place where performing arts from so many backgrounds are so accessible. If only we could “go home” every day knowing that we “deserve to live and to be loved,” touched by the profound beauty of melody, thought, movement, and feeling. If only. “This is what matters, baby.”

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