FringeArts Receives Pew Grant for Operatic Project Awakening

FringeArts has received $300,000 in project-based funding and an additional 20% ($60,000) in unrestricted general operating funds from The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage to support an upcoming operatic work titled Awakening. It is co-commissioned by the International Contemporary Ensemble (with generous commissioning support from Arlene and Larry Dunn) for composer Courtney Bryan, with a creative team composed of director Charlotte Brathwaite, librettist Sharan Strange, art director Cauleen Smith, and lead performer Helga Davis. Dramaturgs Sunder Ganglani and Matthew Morrison will support the project along with a project-specific Community Engagement Manager, to be identified. Awakening hopes to stimulate the contemporary operatic field with its unprecedented focus on the Black female experience. This two-year project will be rooted in Philadelphia residences and directly include the surrounding community in the artistic process through song sharing and contextual dialogue.

Awakening channels the legacies of Black women such as Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman to advance dialogues around power, gender, and race, with Philly's own Rebecca Cox Jackson, founder of the Black Shaker movement, as the central historical figure. In this one-act opera, an imagined contemporary woman transforms herself out of an oppressive situation with the guidance of these three spiritual leaders.

The artistic team will be hosting workshops to teach local audiences newly-crafted songs, sharing a generative practice and encouraging participants to consider their role in advancing Philadelphia's legacy of social change. Community members are invited to explore themes of freedom, spirit, love, home, and sanctuary in these workshops, propelling reflections and conversations about modern power structures forward. As Charlotte Brathwaite and Helga Davis have stated, "imagination is a space of absolute power when you can stand up in it."

The completed work will be co-presented as part of the 2022 Philadelphia Fringe Festival and Opera Philadelphia's O22 Festival.