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Tag: Harriet Tubman

  • Harriet Tubman: The Underground Railroad Meets Opera

    The story of Harriet Tubman has recently hit the performance arena in New York.

    “Harriet Tubman: When I Crossed That Line To Freedom,” is an opera written by a third-generation Nigerian-American who practically grew up on the stories of Tubman and The Underground Railroad.

    Presented by screenwriter Nkeiru Okoye of American Opera Projects, the opera is a product of three years of research.

    Okoye reason behind her extensive research was to accurately portray the details of Tubman’s life as a slave and a liberator.

    Tubman is largely remembered throughout history for helping slaves escape to freedom through a system of safe houses and hiding places. As a runaway slave herself, Tubman became labeled as the most notorious conductor in the U.S.

    Over time, people have likened her to Moses, a Hebrew character in the bible who led his people to freedom from the Egyptian enslavement of Pharaoh.

    So, who wouldn’t want to see the depiction of this woman’s contribution to history on stage?

    However, this is not your ordinary opera show. The production will not only portray Tubman’s involvement in The Underground Railroad but also her personal life.

    “I think most people like to think of Harriet as a born liberator and it robs them of an important part of the story,” she told Voice America in an Interview. “We don’t get that there’s this vulnerable person who’s there.  We don’t get the full picture.”

    Okoye says that the production will incorporate “folk opera”, music rooted in African-American customs. Genres such as gospel and jazz will be heard throughout the show. However, “work songs” and spirituals of that time will bring the opera to life even more.

    Okoye hopes to reveal the human-like side of Tubman. Ultimately, she hopes that people come to understand that Tubman’s life was so much more than just being the “Moses” of that time.

    Scheduled performances are set for February and March at a historical Underground Railroad station in Fort Greene, N.Y.

    Image via Youtube, American Opera Projects

  • Harriet Tubman Story A Folk Opera

    Harriet Tubman Story A Folk Opera

    Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery and led countless others to freedom, too. And even though she did this a century and a half ago, her story is still being told today. A highly creative version of Tubman’s story will soon come to life on stage in operatic form. A second generation Nigerian-American named Nkeiru Okoye has written an opera about Harriet Tubman, based on the stories her mother constantly read her and her sisters as they shuttled back and forth between Nigeria and the United States throughout their childhood.

    “I don’t remember ever not knowing about Harriet Tubman,” she said. “My mother used to love to read my sister and me stories, so my mother probably told me about her even before I learned about Harriet in school.”

    Harriet Tubman was born into a family of slaves around 1820. In 1849–which, of course, was years before the Civil War and the subsequent freeing of slaves, Tubman escaped and traveled north. She created what is still talked of today as the Underground Railroad–a series of safe houses for slaves escaping the south and making her same journey north to freedom. The people who ran the “railroad” were called “conductors.”

    Okoye started out planning to write a work of fiction based on Harriet Tubman’s life, but as she delved even deeper beyond those stories her mother read during childhood, she knew Tubman’s actual life itself held all she needed to tell a compelling and positively fascinating story. So she concentrated on the truth far more than on what has become known as legend.

    “I spent three years getting to know Harriet’s world,” she said.

    A folk opera is what Okoye wound up creating from her in depth study. Called When I Crossed the Line to Freedom, her work is now being presented by the American Opera Projects. They received an award from the National Endowment for the Arts to present works about Harriet Tubman during 2014–the 100th anniversary of her passing.

    So what exactly is a folk opera?

    It “is slightly different from regular opera. Most of the music in Harriet Tubman is rooted in traditional African-American folk idioms,” Okoye said. “So there are elements of gospel, jazz, blues, and then you hear a “field holler,” you hear ragtime, work songs and there are things that sound like spirituals throughout the opera.”

    The world premiere of Okoye’s opera will take place in Brooklyn, New York on February 21st at the Irondale Center.

    This sounds like yet another story in U.S. history that deserves telling and that people all over the country should see. Hopefully additional funding will allow Harriet Tubman’s story to be told–in its folk opera form–all around the nation.

    Image via Wikimedia