OwenCox Dance Group
  • Home
  • Performances
    • Events Calendar
    • Season Ticket Package
  • ABOUT
    • Mission
    • Directors
    • Board
    • Artists >
      • Dancers
      • Musicians
      • Artists
    • Touring Information
    • DEI Commitment
    • Annual Reports
  • Press
    • Electronic Press Kit
    • Articles and Reviews
  • Media
  • Education
    • Take the Stage
    • Paseo Academy
    • Public Events
  • Support
    • Donate
    • Annual Fundraiser
    • Volunteer
    • Sponsors
  • Contact

10/18/2018

Kansas City Opera Singer, Dancers Revive Century-Old Songs To Fight The Patriarchy

0 Comments

Read Now
 
Kansas City Opera Singer, Dancers Revive Century-Old Songs To Fight The Patriarchy

By LIBBY HANSSEN • OCT 18, 2018

Kansas City soprano Victoria Botero found music dating back to the 15th century in which women said things in song that they couldn't say in public..

A new combination of ancient song and contemporary dance draws beauty from the hidden history of women.
“Morena” is a Spanish word meaning “beautiful dark woman.” It is also the name of the latest project between Kansas City soprano and musicologist Victoria Botero, the Owen/Cox Dance Group, and a cadre of international musicians.

Botero compiled secular songs from Jewish, Muslim and Christian traditions, dating from the 9th to 20th centuries, most of them from strict societies in which women, Botero says, “had no agency.” “These were communities where women’s voices were silent in their houses of worship and in the public sphere,” she says. Within the musical sphere, though, “women are allowed to sing things they may not be able to talk about. They can sing about desire. They can sing about infidelity.”

Botero first presented the program, for voice and instruments, at the 1900 Building in 2016. Choreographer Jennifer Owen, co-founder of Owen/Cox, thought the material would lend itself to dance. “There are a lot of stories within the songs, so there’s a natural narrative,” Owen says. Her dancers won’t be telling those stories literally, though. “Because it’s not spoken, dance can be more suggestive, more interpretive,” she says. “My goal for each of the songs is to try and present a mood and a story.”

Originally, Botero was interested in the music of the Sephardic diaspora, which spread throughout the world after Jews were expelled from Spain in the 15th century. She learned of an oral tradition passed from mother to daughter, when women would sing together as they prepared feasts for weddings and funerals, away from men.
Botero found an analogous tradition in an early Christian society, and wondered if there was a similar tradition in the Muslim world.
​
What she found, in fact, pre-dates the Sephardic songs. In a caliphate in Cordoba, the outmost reach of the Ottoman Empire in the 9th century, women developed a special repertory called Ring Songs, or Muwashshah.
“A singer would take a poem in Arabic, but she would pick out one phrase and come back to it, what we now call the refrain,” says Botero.

Share

0 Comments
Details

    Archives

    July 2022
    May 2021
    November 2018
    October 2018
    October 2017
    August 2017
    January 2017
    July 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    October 2015
    September 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    April 2014
    October 2013
    June 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    April 2012
    December 2011
    July 2011
    May 2011
    December 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    December 2009
    June 2009

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Get Social with us.

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

OUR MISSION:

Owen/Cox Dance Group's mission is to create new music and dance collaborations, to present high-quality contemporary dance performances with live music, and to engage as wide an audience as possible through affordable live performance, education and outreach programs.
Owen/Cox Dance Group is a 501(c)3 not for profit corporation. Donations made to Owen/Cox Dance Group are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law. Owen/Cox Dance Group is part of the Combined Federal Campaign, CFC #16312.
Copyright 2014-2018 Owen/Cox Dance Group. All Rights Reserved. 
 Web Design by The Brave Creative.
  • Home
  • Performances
    • Events Calendar
    • Season Ticket Package
  • ABOUT
    • Mission
    • Directors
    • Board
    • Artists >
      • Dancers
      • Musicians
      • Artists
    • Touring Information
    • DEI Commitment
    • Annual Reports
  • Press
    • Electronic Press Kit
    • Articles and Reviews
  • Media
  • Education
    • Take the Stage
    • Paseo Academy
    • Public Events
  • Support
    • Donate
    • Annual Fundraiser
    • Volunteer
    • Sponsors
  • Contact