Can We Know the Sound of Forgiveness
A merging of arts for the stage that combines visual art, music, dance, movement, and spoken word to create an urgent new language for collective expression.
James Drake, Shaun Leonardo and Leila Hamidi sketch out movement for performance during 2020 residency in Ucross, WY
Concept for stage projection of James Drake drawing, Can We Know the Sound of Forgiveness
Work-in-progress performance at SITE Santa Fe, July 2022
In residence in New York, NY, March 2022: Leila Hamidi and Ben Saenz
In residence in Houston, TX, December 2022: James Drake, Leila Hamidi, Steve Jiménez
In residence in El Paso, TX, July 2021: Shaun Leonardo, James Drake
The world premiere performance of Can We Know the Sound of Forgiveness took place on January 20, 2024 at the Brockman Hall for Opera at Rice University in Houston, Texas, with a second performance in October of 2024 at Carnegie Hall in New York.
About the project: I began my role as curator on this multi-year cross disciplinary collaborative for the stage in October of 2020. Inspired by James Drake’s epic drawing of the same title, Can We Know the Sound of Forgiveness is an immersive performance that unfolds in five movements, with a score by renowned composer Gabriela Ortiz, text and lyrics by award-winning author Benjamin Alire Sáenz, and 24 singers from the Grammy-winning chamber choir, The Crossing, conducted by Donald Nally.
The multidisciplinary collaboration features stage movement by artist Shaun Leonardo, accompanied by local US military veteran performers from each city in which the project is performed; additional music by master flutist Alejandro Escuer; and a dance ensemble from Houston Ballet Academy. The collaborative performance tells its story from the perspective of “the Earth, the Land, the Soil, the Sand,” which “do not demand our daughters and our sons as sacrifices.” Creators of Can We Know the Sound of Forgiveness seek to encourage hope in a dark and divisive time by conceiving a transformational work that is complex, moving and immersed in a throughline that carries us from violence and conflict to healing and forgiveness.