about
We Are Good is an experimental music/theater residency and performance process developed with writer/director and civic practice pioneer Michael Rohd and theater artist/practitioner Quenna Lené Barrett that explores the ways we as a community deal with the past and imagine our futures. Designed to foster authentic inquiry among audiences of varied social and political backgrounds, We Are Good uses techniques developed with Deep Listening practitioners Leila Ramagopal Pertl and Brian Pertl to bring strangers together through communal music-making in an original work that provokes participants to explore: What role should the past play in decisions about the future? How do past events shape us? What responsibility do we have for what happened before we were alive? How does a community make hard choices together? Who do we believe?
An open framework for the process of tackling difficult questions as a group, We Are Good includes Deep Listening and story circle residency sessions that invite discussion on moments of challenging collective decision-making, how past events shape current community decisions, and how people’s lived experience around that decision-making today differs based on their identity, economic reality, and culture.
The project culminates in a participatory public performance, which includes creative acts generated by participants through the residency process. Interactive text scores and participant stories weave together with musical explorations by composers such as folk musician Rhiannon Giddens, improviser/activist Daniel Bernard Roumain, and jazz bassist Jordyn Davis. Each show's score will reflect unique musical selections, through an "interactive jukebox" stocked with participant-inspired compositions and pop music arrangements that provide diverse responses to the question of what it means to be an American.
Fifth House Ensemble is developing this project with performance venues, universities, libraries, and community organizations in a digital format this season.
At a time when the ability to think for one’s self while balancing contributions to a collective whole is more urgent than ever, We Are Good offers participants of diverse viewpoints and beliefs the opportunity to connect through the visceral experience of communal music making, paired with a compelling allegorical story that brings immediate context to the urgent need for mutual respect, shared experience, and open dialogue.
collaborators
Michael Rohd co-founded the Center for Performance and Civic Practice, where he holds the position of Lead Artist for Civic Imagination. He is founding artistic director of the 19 year old national ensemble-based Sojourn Theatre, where he has led the devising and producing of many of the company’s twenty-six major theatre works. In 2015, he received an Otto Rene Castillo award for Political Theater and The Robert Gard Foundation Award for Excellence. He is an Institute Professor at Arizona State University’s Herberger Institute for Design & the Arts and is author of the widely translated book Theatre for Community, Conflict, and Dialogue. He was the 2013-2016 Doris Duke Artist-in-Residence at Lookingglass Theater Company in Chicago. Recent and current projects include collaborations and productions with Goodman Theater, Americans for the Arts, Nashville’s MetroArts, Cleveland Public Theater, Catholic Charities USA, Cook Inlet Housing Authority Alaska, ASU/Gammage, and Steppenwolf Theater.
Sojourn Theatre’s How to End Poverty in 90 Minutes: Trailer // Interview // About
Quenna Lené Barrett (she/her) is a theater artist and practitioner, developing programs to amplify teen and community voice and hold space to rehearse, tell, and change the stories of their lives. She is a company member with the Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health’s For Youth Inquiry company, Associate Artist with Pivot Arts, recent co-curator for Theatre on the Lake, and is the Associate Director of Education at the Goodman Theatre.
Quenna received her BFA from NYU Tisch Drama, MA in Applied Theatre from the University of Southern California, and is pursuing an educational doctorate (EdD) in Educational Theatre at NYU Steinhardt. As a director and performer, she has worked with a number of companies including Sojourn, The Theatre School at DePaul, Free Street, Pegasus, Court, eta, and Theater Unspeakable. Quenna has received Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events grants, artist residences at Santa Fe Art Institute Equal Justice and Free Street Theatre, and a Lincoln City Fellowship from the Speranza Foundation. Continuing to build the world she wants to see/live in, she is developing personal practices of poetic and participatory performance.
Leila Ramagopal Pertl is a creator, collaborator, innovator, and improviser who firmly believes that music is a human birthright. Everything she does stems from that profound belief. Her collaborative compositions are designed to help all participants rediscover their inner musicianship through shared musical creation. All participants leave knowing that their voices were absolutely critical
in creating a transformational work that never existed before. Leila is one of 6 International Deep Listening certification instructors, teaches in the Music Education Department at Lawrence University, and has created and led two innovative music programs in elementary schools where every student drums, sings, dances, composes and improvises. As the Music Education Curator for the Mile of Music Festival in Appleton Wisconsin. Leila and her team lead 60 hands-on music-making events for the 75,000 visitors. She is the Wisconsin Music Education Association Chair for Composition and Improvisation and was recently appointed to the Smithsonian Folkways International Music Education Committee.
Brian Pertl is an improviser, ethnomusicologist, and is currently the Dean of the Lawrence Conservatory of Music. He is passionate about reframing the conventions of a classical music education, and classical music performance. He has staged musical events inside racquetball courts, stairwells, sandstone canyons, and cedar forests. His piece, Land of Snows, for Tibetan horn, didjeridu, conch shell trumpet, and harmonic singing, was recorded in the Dan Harpole Cistern in Port Townsend Washington which boasts a 45 second reverb. Pauline Oliveros requested that Brian perform the piece with her on her 80 birthday concert at Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Renssalaer. Trained as a trombonist, Brian also plays the didjeridu, Tibetan horns, and many other instruments from around the world. Brian and his wife Leila co-teach the Deep Listening Lab at Lawrence University lead creativity workshops and retreats in a wide variety of settings from hallway houses to corporate board rooms.
instrumentation
flexible instrumentation + theater artist