11 July 2024
Attending GALA Choruses Festival in Minneapolis, pondering butch identity, finding solace in music and Leather, and reflecting on performances.
“I like your aesthetic, you always bring the butch and I love it.“
Said to me by a fellow chorus member as we made our way back to the hotel. Decked out in a sleeveless t-shirt from Dungeon Beds, my Leather vest, dark jeans, boots, and belt, I smiled in appreciation. Butch: it’s a term often associated with folx with the know-how to work with their hands.
Changed a tire? Butch.
Used a hammer to pry open a locked door? Butch.
Watched a YouTube video and learned how to change your own truck’s alternator in the parking lot of an auto parts store just moments before a rainstorm? Butch.
At some point in my life, I learned to take it as a compliment. Honestly, I’ve never thought of myself as butch. I know what I know and, to quote Popeye, I am what I am. If I’m butch, I guess I am. Now, let’s learn how to switch the hinges of your dryer’s door to the other side. All I need is a flat head screwdriver, a crescent wrench, and some time. At the end, you might get a reward for helping Sir.
Today was an eventful day at GALA and I’ve still not seen the light. To reference Schitt’s Creek, Citrus has yet to show me the Gateway. Though I’ve seen many attendees flood the event’s socials with photos and posts brimming with admiration and adulation, I am currently not feeling it. Perhaps it’s because I still have a job to do tomorrow afternoon when my chorus goes up on stage. My mind isn’t focused on others so much as it is on the coming performance. My mission isn’t fulfilled and, because of that, I cannot find the bandwidth at the moment to ooh and ahh at the performances of others.
So, today was a bit of a throwaway day with nothing scheduled and nothing for me to do. Granted, the GALA schedule is an overstuffed dolma of choruses from all over taking to stages one after the other turning them into wonderful factories of music and movement. Workshops are happening, however, the curriculum is geared more toward choir/chorus administrators and less toward singing members of the collective. This morning, I attended the first portion of a workshop on managing a sectional only to find myself sunk beneath choral terms and concepts. Maybe it was my less-than-fully caffeinated brain slowly coming to life like a cold jalopy but trying to “join tones with the voice behind you” or “find the fullness in the other’s sound and mirror it” sounded extraordinarily esoteric bringing to mind a Tori Amos lyric that I love: “And if I lose my Cracker Jacks at the tidal wave, I’ve got a place in the Pope’s rubber robe.“
As I sat there, I began to feel apart-from, that old feeling when I feel I’ve got no business being somewhere. I quietly got up and left feeling not unlike (to paraphrase David Sedaris) Pa Kettle backstage at a fashion show. This was not my place, leading a choral body; my place is out on the stage, in the rows singing my part, not trying to find the blending of voices in a room. I have no objective concept of sound, not in the sense that a chorus requires anyway. I can find beauty in a wolf’s howl, an orgasmic sigh, or a cry of pain but uncovering sonic gems from a roomful of folx is not my forte. Best leave it to the professionals so I can focus gleefully on dragging the lash across trembling flesh.
After I left, I came back to the room to regroup and rethink the day’s life choices starting with my wardrobe. Putting away the shorts and shirt to don jeans, boots, and vest, I felt more like myself. I’ve always felt more at ease when wrapped in Leather. Making my way out to lunch, the world felt more right and I chatted briefly with a few folx on the street, chorus members from other places. I’ve said this more than a few times but Leather is armor and a fortifier for me, something that helps me connect as well as repel. For example, on the ride down the elevator, I shared the car with with a young man who appeared anxious after giving me the once over. Once on the street, I felt liberated geared up and giving no fucks.
The rest of the day was a series of moments. Lunch at a small hibachi grill place, picking up t-shirts, walking through the ingeniously-designed skyway winding through downtown Minneapolis, coming back to home base. The heat and humid provided a sticky backdrop to the day’s vignettes, not entirely unpleasant but not comfortable.
The night hours descended and with it came the ensemble performances that included my chorus. After changing again, we took to the evening air still sticky and cooler by a whisker. We walked to the convention center where I picked up an iced Americano and a snack before the show began.
It was perhaps during this time that I saw the faint outline of the GALA Gateway through a thin sheen of tears as Phoenix, AZ’s Canyon Echoes Harmonic Vibrations performed a somber and beautiful rendition of Pentatonix’s “Run To You,” the lyrics caressed my heart like a fireplace poker dragging through hot coals.
I’ve been settling scores
I’ve been fighting so long
But I’ve lost your war
And our kingdom is gone
How shall I win back
Your heart which was mine
I have broken bones and tattered clothes
I’ve run out of time
I’ll run, I’ll run
I’ll run run to you
– Pentatonix –
Following that came members of Ukraine’s first LGBTQ+ choir Querty Queer, a pair of folx performed a trio of duets including folk song, “Oy, Tam Na Hori,” followed by “Pisnia Nayady,” and concluded with an original composition by the Vysnhnevski Sisters titled, “Liudiana Liut’,” a harrowing, raging song borne of war and destruction. This last one resonated with me particularly because there too is war in my blood; whereas the people of Ukraine fight to keep their Land, my People lost much of our own to settling forces centuries ago. At this, my heart curled into a balled fist of solidarity while my hands gave appreciation through applause.
Of note following Querty Queer was Albuquerque, NM’s Hot Flashes rendition of Holly Near’s “I Ain’t Afraid” (“I ain’t afraid of your Yahweh/I ain’t afraid of your Allah/I ain’t afraid of your Jesus/I’m afraid of what you do in the name of your god.”). The tone would shift throughout the evening as ensembles delved into the serious and the silly, the somber and the celebratory. It was this gentle, sonic ambivalence that allowed me to glimpse the potential for epiphany, the very edge of heaven’s corona.
I cannot say that this choral experience has been life-changing just yet nor can I say that it will happen by the end of this trek. We shall see.
In the meantime, I’ll just be butch.
I will break down the gates of heaven
A thousand angels stand waiting for me
Oh, take my heart (Take my heart)
And I’ll lay down my weapons
Break my shackles to set me free
I’ll run, I’ll run
I’ll run, run to you
– Pentatonix –
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