<< Front page Arts February 27, 2004

APA performance shocks, moves and educates

Poet Magdalena Gomez and musician Fred Ho challenged Oberlin audiences with a fierce representation of history and the ways that music and poetry can shock people into thought.

Last Saturday, the thirteenth biennial Mid-West Asian Pacific American Conference presented “Music and Poetry for Third World Liberty and Liberation.” Gomex and Ho epitomized the name of this year’s APA Conference: “Changing Faces Facing Change.”

Gomez, award winning Hispanic poet, novelist and educator, began the program with an excerpt from her novel, Soap and Water. Her descriptions of a young girl coming of age in the Bronx were delicate and robust. With a delivery that enraptured the audience, she explained that her motive is to capture “the stories of abuse of womenand appreciate all the women that influence[d]” her.

Her poems were defiant, acting as a liberating cry for women “and the men who honor them.” In “What Women are Called,” she expressed the complexity of what a woman can be. Her words were penetrating, challenging the audience to rethink the roles that Asian women and men have in their lives. “I am the law of my own beliefwithout me there is no axis on which to spin the great world of your thoughtsI am all you cannot be, the one who brings forth the gods.” Her poems are epic, conjuring images of city life. She manipulated her voice, invoking women she had known in “The Women I’ve Known and the Women I’ve Been.”

Fred Ho is a Chinese-American baritone saxaphonist as well as a writer and activist. He has performed with the Brooklyn Sax Quartet and the Afro-Asian Ensemble, and has recorded fifteen albums and “The Black Panther Suite.”

He approached the stage with an authority that grabbed the audience’s attention. Ho began by making conceptual statements about political movements: “Every social movement has two wingsone is reformist, the other wing is radical.” He explained that it is the “energy generated by these wings that brings about change.”

Ho redefined the “saxophone” sound. He employed the squeak register, making sounds that challenged his audience. There were elements of jazz, yet he dismissed concepts of steady rhythm and simple melody. At the end, during a question-and-answer session an audience member asked him to address this dismissal. He said his music is the kind that people either love or hate, he also mentioned that there is website devoted to criticizing him.

Ho’s selections commemorated the migration and lives of Asian people throughout the world. After his performance he and Gomez did a collaborative spoken word and musical performance in which Ho played cacophonous notes in polyrhythm accenting Gomez’s words on American corruption, the phenomenon of American political “innocent by-standerism.” Some of the poems seemed overwhelming and filled with familiar political language. In spite of this, her poems and Ho’s music challenged western conception that poetry and music are supposed to make audiences comfortable and reinforce their easy lifestle.

The question-and-answer session was surprisingly moving. A real moment occurred when a student asked about an ex-boyfriend whom she believed to be hypocrital. He claimed to be anti-war and anti-capitalism, yet he plastered naked blonds on his walls and was fascinated by popular culture.

Magdelena Gomez threw the question back at her and asked her to take the stage. She did, and moved the audience with her candid description of his fickle and arbitrary affiliations with political causes. It was empowering and incredible meaningful to be present when actual lived experience was discussed in a political forum.

The program left one thinking about the ingrained nature of Western conceptions of poetry and music. At times Gomez’s poetry made one feel uncomfortable and potentially pushed audience members into a place of uncertainty.

Ho’s music was a punch in the face to some, yet he explained the politics behind his radical and innovative music.


 
 
   

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