{"id":314,"date":"2021-07-09T00:55:23","date_gmt":"2021-07-09T00:55:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/katiekring.com\/new\/?page_id=314"},"modified":"2021-12-07T02:11:59","modified_gmt":"2021-12-07T02:11:59","slug":"forgotten-voices","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/katiekring.com\/new\/forgotten-voices\/","title":{"rendered":"Forgotten Voices"},"content":{"rendered":"
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FROM THE COMPOSER<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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To create this piece, I interviewed and solicited texts from my homeless friends (most of whom are members of the Springfield Street Choir) about their lives, experiences, and opinions, and used their words as best I could to assemble the pieces of music you hear here. <\/span><\/p>\n

I have attempted to confine my editorial work to structures as much as possible — rearranging thoughts for flow, rhyme, and structure, while preserving the language, meaning, and feeling of the original texts to the greatest extent I could. I have also attempted to represent a wide range of viewpoints, not just those that serve my advocacy agenda. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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To further spotlight the voices of my unhoused friends, there are four short pieces of musique concrete<\/em> that serve as transitions between the pieces, assembled from the original interviews, from other pieces of audio provided by my homeless friends, and from a few other relevant sources. <\/span><\/p>\n

It is my hope that you hear the beautifully articulated, piercing words in this song cycle, give credit where it is due — to the brilliant, beautiful, exceedingly human people living on the streets of this city — and let that move you to generosity, advocacy, and activism around this pressing humanitarian crisis.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Much love to Mike H., Paul Sartin, Katy, Blake A., Nino A., Kevin H., and others who shared their wisdom and insights with me. <\/span><\/p>\n

Special thanks and love to Coco, who was my first & dearest homeless friend, and who has provided invaluable guidance in this project in particular and in my worldview in general; to my parents for their unceasing support and encouragement, to Christie Love who truly lives up to her name, and to SCC Artistic Director Chris Brammer, for being a terrific collaborator and providing endless insight and support for all of my crazy schemes.  <\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Katie Kring<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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ABOUT THE ARTISTS<\/span><\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Katie Kring<\/b> is a composer, writer-of-musicals, baker and alto. Katie\u2019s choral works and commissions are performed internationally and she has served as Springfield Chamber Chorus\u2019s Composer-in-Residence for several years. Her \u201cAt the Hour of Closing\u201d was the winner of the 2019 MCDA Opus Award. She is particularly interested in creating work that empowers disadvantaged communities and is a passionate advocate for writing good parts for altos.  Katie\u2019s musical theatre works include PEARL, ONWARD, FARMERS MARKET THE MUSICAL (about the time she got kicked out of the farmers\u2019 market — twice!), IN THE SWIM and THINK BIG for the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and KELLY THE DESTROYER VS THE SPRINGFIELD COBRAS. Her first opera, SWEET LOUISA, is slated to premiere in 2022.  Katie is the owner of Pickwick & Cherry, a bakery & cooking school, and an adjunct professor in the Missouri State University Music Department. In 2019, she founded the Springfield Street Choir, a choir made up of people experiencing homelessness and extreme poverty. She received her MFA in Musical Theatre Writing at NYU and her BFA in music at the University of Michigan, where she danced 25\u2019 up a tree and lived to tell about it.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Coco<\/b> is a survivor of mental illness, domestic violence,  addiction, and over a decade of collective homeless experience. They have ridden the rails, slept in vans, tents, and trap houses, overcame addiction, been locked up for petty poverty crimes, and parented some terrific children. Throughout, they have remained a loving parent, a brilliant writer and communicator, and a fierce advocate for justice for those experiencing poverty and marginalization.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Paul<\/b> Sartin<\/strong> is a man who is a welter of contradictions – a spectacularly articulate man who isn\u2019t afraid to throw a punch, someone who loves very deeply but who has been hurt in impossible ways, and who has a rap sheet that says he carries the potential for danger, but who has only ever made me feel safe and protected to have him around. He has overcome mental illness, addiction, prison, and 8 years on the streets, and has been clean, sober, and housed since March of 2020. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Katy<\/strong> arrived in Springfield fleeing domestic violence and battling active addiction. She sought stability in shelters but was permanently resigned to her car as shelter options expired one by one. She learned first-hand how difficult it is to find safe places that would allow her to park and sleep. Katy achieved sobriety before the pandemic but struggled to keep her commitment to mental health and self-care as an undiagnosed neurodivergent adult. As many as 1 in 7 homeless adults are undiagnosed with developmental neurodivergent conditions that make even an ordinary housed life difficult. Katy boldly uses her experience in tandem with her passion for learning to advocate for herself and those who have struggled to survive on the streets of our city and continue her lifelong search for belonging, making her way in a “community of outcasts” as she did. Katy has been housed for about a year now; however, she is a consumate researcher who is always exploring best practices on addressing homelessness, poverty, disability, and mental illness. Voices and experiences like hers are a desperately needed channel in our community to create effective solutions to improve the quality of life for our unsheltered citizens.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Springfield Street Choir<\/b> is a choir for people in Springfield, Missouri who are experiencing homelessness and\/or extreme poverty and deprivation. It began in October of 2019 at the erstwhile Connecting Grounds church with just 16 singers, and by the time it was forced to shut down because of the pandemic, had had over 300 homeless singers attend at least one rehearsal, performed for hundreds of people at the Springfield Art Museum and on The Mystery Hour, and been the subject of an award-winning feature-length documentary \u201cSongs from the Streets.\u201d After a not-a-particularly-successful attempt at covid-era choir in a parking garage in late 2020, the Street Choir returned to regular rehearsals in April of 2021 and will be resuming performances soon. Many of the texts in this piece were taken from conversations with its members. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Ethan D. Bryan<\/b> is a storyteller whose narratives explore what it means to live a good story. At the age of six, he lost all of his hair due to an immune-system disorder called alopecia. Ethan knows about overcoming personal obstacles and being bullied. He also understands the power of hope, persevering through hundreds upon hundreds of manuscript rejections. The author of ten books, his writings earned him an opportunity to speak at the National Baseball Hall of Fame, an invitation to the White House for the Royals World Series championship, and endorsements from several former MLB players including Jim \u201cThe Rookie\u201d Morris. Ethan has appeared ever so briefly in an ESPN 30-for-30 and as a background ballplayer in an Emmy-award winning documentary (First Boys of Spring).  Ethan played catch every single day of 2018, an effort that came to be known as Catch 365 and documented the journey through a daily blog.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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ABOUT THE SONGS<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n
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ONE: LAST NIGHT<\/span><\/h2>\n

by Coco<\/span><\/h3>\n

“The shelters weren\u2019t open last night and it was so cold, I was afraid to go to sleep because I didn\u2019t think I would wake up. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

What is the word for wanting to go home and having no home? “<\/span><\/div>\n
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“The text of this piece is the verbatim Facebook status of my dear friend Coco after a long, cold night in February of 2020. At the time they posted this, they were homeless and sleeping in an unheated van. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

In Springfield, MO, the current guidelines set by the Continuum of Care only open the shelters when the temperature is forecast to be 32 degrees or less for four or more overnight hours, without any consideration for windchill or precipitation. Medical science tells us hypothermia can begin to set in at temperatures below 40 degrees for people who are not dressed for the weather, and at even higher temperatures when people are wet. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Thus, it is in fact entirely possible to freeze to death on nights that are too warm for the emergency cold weather shelters to open. The musical setting attempts to capture the haunting fear, the crystalline, malicious cold, and the anger and despair of having nowhere to go home<\/span>.” – KK<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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