{"id":155,"date":"2017-03-07T13:04:07","date_gmt":"2017-03-07T18:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techandsensibility.com\/?p=155"},"modified":"2017-03-07T14:03:05","modified_gmt":"2017-03-07T19:03:05","slug":"singing-the-nation-into-being-anthems-and-the-politics-of-black-female-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/techandsensibility.com\/?p=155","title":{"rendered":"Singing the Nation Into Being: Anthems and the Politics of Black Female Performance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This project \u00a0focuses on black women&#8217;s performance of James Weldon Johnson\u2019s \u00a0\u201cLift Every Voice and Sing\u201d to examine what\u00a0these evocations\u00a0might reveal about black subjectivities, diaspora, and identity formation vis-a-vis discourses on national belonging. Part of a larger Omeka-based project called Nation Songs, \u201cSinging the Nation Into Being\u201d features a large collection of video performances of artists\u00a0(both professional and amateur), which includes individuals, celebrities, groups, choirs, and other formations.<\/p>\n<p><div class=\"epyt-video-wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\"  id=\"_ytid_67020\"  width=\"480\" height=\"360\"  data-origwidth=\"480\" data-origheight=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/cy_R0O9DxEY?enablejsapi=1&autoplay=0&cc_load_policy=0&cc_lang_pref=&iv_load_policy=1&loop=0&rel=0&fs=1&playsinline=0&autohide=1&theme=dark&color=red&controls=1&\" class=\"__youtube_prefs__  no-lazyload\" title=\"YouTube player\"  allow=\"fullscreen; accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen data-no-lazy=\"1\" data-skipgform_ajax_framebjll=\"\"><\/iframe><\/div><br \/>\nRen\u00e9 Marie performs her composition of the national anthem, a fusion of &#8220;Lift Every Voice and Sing&#8221; and &#8220;The Star-Spangled Banner&#8221; in Denver, Colorado, 2008.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><div class=\"epyt-video-wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\"  id=\"_ytid_25738\"  width=\"480\" height=\"360\"  data-origwidth=\"480\" data-origheight=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/uvTnfDJyKPw?enablejsapi=1&autoplay=0&cc_load_policy=0&cc_lang_pref=&iv_load_policy=1&loop=0&rel=0&fs=1&playsinline=0&autohide=1&theme=dark&color=red&controls=1&\" class=\"__youtube_prefs__  no-lazyload\" title=\"YouTube player\"  allow=\"fullscreen; accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen data-no-lazy=\"1\" data-skipgform_ajax_framebjll=\"\"><\/iframe><\/div><br \/>\nMelba Moore and various artists perform &#8220;Lift Every Voice and Sing.&#8221; Video directed by Debbie Allen, 1990.<\/p>\n<p>My aim is to consider how the performances, their venues, as well as the use of this particular anthem might provide us with new ways of conceiving of the meanings of &#8220;nation&#8221;\u2014and the role that music, performance, and black female subjectivity play in this discourse. The larger project, Nation Songs, expands to examine performances of national anthems by celebrity singers such as Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Leontyne Price, and Beyonc\u00e9. I engage\u00a0Farah Jasmine Griffin&#8217;s &#8220;When Malindy Sings: A Meditation on Black Women\u2019s Vocality&#8221; as a framework for organizing the performances and\u00a0of\u00a0making meaning of the demand\u00a0for the black, female singing voice to &#8220;sound&#8221; and embody nation even as she is outside of it. While Griffin\u2019s focus in \u201cWhen Malindy Sings\u201d is on African American women performing various anthems\/healing songs, at history-making moments, in this instance, I want to consider Johnson\u2019s \u201cLift Every Voice and Sing\u201d and those\u00a0performances of the song that speak to this notion of the always-more\u2014the demands, the desires, and the excesses. These performances, which carry their own and separate vocal politics of black female singing, nevertheless speak to this duality of desire for healing, on the one hand, and what Daphne Brooks terms &#8220;spirited dissent,&#8221; on the other. What might we better understand about nation\u2014or understand differently about the desire\/demand for the black, female singing voice and the meaning of that demand, if we, perhaps, attune our ears to these performances?<\/p>\n<p>T<a href=\"http:\/\/techandsensibility.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Omeka-Items2.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-159 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/techandsensibility.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Omeka-Items2-278x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"358\" height=\"339\" \/><\/a>he aim\u00a0for this project, ultimately, is to make it publicly available and to bring the research into the classroom through an interactive website, which will serve as both a teaching tool as well as means for students to contribute their own ideas and analyses to the conversation.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This project \u00a0focuses on black women&#8217;s performance of James Weldon Johnson\u2019s \u00a0\u201cLift Every Voice and Sing\u201d to examine what\u00a0these evocations\u00a0might reveal about black subjectivities, diaspora, and identity formation vis-a-vis discourses on national belonging. Part of a larger Omeka-based project called&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[38,35,36,33,34,37,32],"class_list":["post-155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-digital-humanities","category-music","tag-debbie-allen","tag-denver","tag-farah-jasmine-griffin","tag-james-weldon-johnson","tag-lift-every-voice","tag-melba-moore","tag-rene-marie"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/techandsensibility.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/techandsensibility.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/techandsensibility.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/techandsensibility.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/techandsensibility.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=155"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/techandsensibility.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":201,"href":"http:\/\/techandsensibility.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions\/201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/techandsensibility.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/techandsensibility.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/techandsensibility.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}