By Stacey Ho
Join in song with "Why we should Cry."
At Montreal’s Cabot Square, Deborah Margo and Devora Neumark are organizing some unusual singing lessons. In a park celebrating the European colonization of Canada, immigrants and refugees will be sharing their mourning songs. During the course of six sessions, Neumark and Margo hope to create a public space for dialog and reflection in a project titled Why should we cry: lamentations in a winter garden.
“The notion of singing is something everybody can do. It’s not about having a beautiful voice. It’s about what can happen when people sing together.”
In a spirit of inclusiveness, the two artists have sought out teachers from a wide range of communities and experiences. Accompanied by a drum, Pierre Junoir Lefevre is leading the first session on September 21, sharing traditional mourning songs from his native Haiti. Considering the recent hurricane as well as the police shootings in Montreal’s Haitian community, these processional songs in French and Creole hit especially close to home.
Deborah and Devora met another teacher while in the middle of soundcheck by the subway station. Needing a male voice to test the timbre in a mic, they stopped Hadji, who happened to be walking by. When he began to freestyle about his experiences as a recent immigrant to Canada, they happily invited him to participate in the entire project. (Why should we cry has its own blog here where you can listen to this very session.)
“He immediately started to do this exquisite rap about being originally from Algeria and Paris. It was all about the tensions of displacement and migration.”
Displacement is a significant theme for Margo and Neumark, who both have family that came to Canada to escape the pogroms of World War II. Their own practices and friendship span the course of 28 years, beginning in a shared drawing class at Concordia University. Appropriately then, Margo and Neumark see themselves as learners in this current project, not facilitators. They envision the project as something that will change according to the needs and experiences of all participants.
“We don’t assume that there is a singular or a pre-given public. This project isn’t about stepping into a public space that is already being delineated.”
Why should we cry culminates as a final performance, given at midnight on the winter solstice. Singing songs of mourning on the darkest day of the year, Margo and Neumark hope to address the need for reflection of cultural difference, xenophobia, and personal pain within the community.
“Winter is a time for rest. It’s a time when things are slowed down, preparing for the spring. Dormancy doesn’t mean death. It means things are resting.”
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