Angel Island Part 4: Dialogue and Departure
EPISODE DESCRIPTION
The word “departure” generally refers to the physical act of leaving a place. However, departure also indicates a deviation from one’s traditional course of action or way of thinking.
As we close out this season of Sounds Current, Charlton and esteemed collaborators reflect on their experiences related to the development and subsequent productions of Angel Island. How have the music, the conversations, and their experiences on Angel Island shaped their understanding of the current immigration debate in the US and beyond? How has being a part of the project affected their personal narratives and understanding of family history? And what does the future hold for this project as a whole?
And how is the audience receiving the piece? For the first time in this series, we hear immediate reactions from patrons who attended Angel Island at the Brooklyn Academy of Music as part of its Next Wave Festival. Their responses reinforce the power that art has to stimulate cultural curiosity and prompt difficult conversations.
Poet Genny Lim agrees. “I think the process for a successful collaboration is to have as much openness as possible and listening to each other. Knowing these stories and holding each other's stories, I think we can discover some truth.”
Though this season is coming to a close, the story of Angel Island, the place and the project, doesn’t end with one generation or one production. “We hope that everyone who visits the site or learns about the history, remembers all these complexities of what immigrants have experienced,” says Ed Tepporn, executive director of Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation, “but also believes in a future where, regardless of where we were born or what language we speak or how we identify, that we all have the right to feel safe and to belong.”
As the artistic team celebrates performances of Angel Island at the detention barracks, UC–Berkeley, Washington DC, Singapore, and New York, it does so focused both on the future and the past. As Charlton said in the first episode, this project just keeps growing and growing and growing! Del Sol has launched the first ever concert series on the island, there's Songs of the Diaspora, a collaboration with poet Genny Lim, this podcast, and even more coming up.
Composer Huang Ruo also believes that, like the century-old poems it references, Angel Island is alive and subject to transformation. “In the original six-movement version, we ended Angel Island as a funeral,” he says. “The journey should not end at death.” Instead, our departure from Angel Island remains open-ended.
Part 4 Features:
Matthew Ozawa, Stage Director, New York premiere of Angel Island
Andi Wong, Teaching Artist and Arts Advocate
Genny Lim, Poet, Playwright, Performer, and Pioneer
Casey Dexter-Lee, State Park Interpreter II for Angel Island
Susan Moffat, Principal, Future Histories Studio
Huang Ruo, Composer, Angel Island
Ben Kreith, Del Sol Quartet violinist
Kathryn Bates, Del Sol Quartet cellist
Hyeyung Sol Yoon, Del Sol Quartet violinist
Sidney Chen, Singer, Volti San Francisco
Ed Tepporn, Executive Director, Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation
And numerous audience members from the Next Wave Festival, co-presented by Brooklyn Academy of Music and Prototype Festival, Produced by Beth Morrison Projects in association with Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Featured Music Provided By:
Order Huang Ruo’s A Dust in Time here, listen in Spotify or your favorite music streaming service.
The Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation invites you to Immigrant Voices, a growing archive of personal stories of Pacific Coast immigrants. Explore here.
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Angel Island Immigration Station
Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation
Brooklyn Academy Of Music (BAM)
Lost Angeles Chinatown Riot And Lynchings of 1871
William & Flora Hewlett Foundation
QUOTES
“It holds both truths. It holds both things, and that's why I think the work is so powerful 'cause it's not just about beautiful music. It's about actually looking at the hard decisions that were made as a nation in the past.” - Hyeyung Sol Yoon
“We as a nation, unfortunately, are built on a form of racism and exclusion across the board.” - Matthew Ozawa
“I'm always looking for the truth, you know. We've made ourselves to be so separate from each other and so antagonistic towards each other. And a lot of it has to do, I believe, with capitalism.” - Genny Lim
“There's so much loss. There's so much grief. Where do you find the ability to survive and still maintain your sanity, your inner peace? I think that's our job, to be able to find that for ourselves and for each other. Otherwise, there's just no hope for us.” - Genny Lim
“I think it's been so interesting to see how poetry has really been a balm for people in this time of uncertainty.” - Andi Wong
“We all live in a capital-C community, and the more that we can learn about each other's histories and current realities, the more of a chance we have to build a future where all of us feel included and feel that we have an equal opportunity at success, at thriving, at health. And that, for me, is a really beautiful future that is worth fighting for.” - Ed Tepporn
LEARN MORE
https://www.delsolquartet.com/podcast
CREDITS
Hosted by Charlton Lee
Produced by Andrea Klunder, The Creative Impostor Studios, Charlton Lee, Kathryn Bates, Hyeyung Sol Yoon, Ben Kreith
Story Editor: Andrea Klunder
Sound Design: Andrea Klunder
Technical Director & Post Production Audio: Edwin R. Ruiz
Field Producer & Recording Engineer: Kathryn Bates
Field Producer: Verena Lee
Podcast Manager: Alex Riegler
Show Notes: Lisa Widder
Cover Art: Felicia Lee
Theme Music: composed by Charlton Lee, performed by Del Sol Quartet
Executive Producers: Andrea Fellows Fineberg, Don Fineberg
Featured music from The Angel Island Oratorio composed by Huang Ruo. Performed by Del Sol Quartet & United States Air Force Band's Singing Sergeants / National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian Institution, recording and edited by Suraya Mohamed.