A Re-visioning of a Classic: The Rosina Project by Khalid Long
Image by Vin Reed. From Left: Peyton 'Skrollz' Yang, Lani ‘JiigSixx’ Anderson, Pinqy Ring, KJ Light, Sophia 'Sophul' Bevilacqua, Orlando ‘Juice’ de Leon, Austin Fillmore
Embedded writer Khalid Y. Long offers his reflection from inside the rehearsal process of Chicago Fringe Opera and BraveSoul Movement’s The Rosina Project: An Immersive Hip-Hopera
Chicago Fringe Opera and BraveSoul Movement present ROSINA: REMIXED!
Directed by George Cederquist
Choreographic movement by Kelsa “K-Soul” Robinson and Daniel “Bravemonk” Haywood
Music by K. F. Jacques and ‘Kechi
Lyrics by Mikey to the P and the Artists
Catch Rosina: Remixed!
Friday, June 17 and Saturday, June 18, 2022 at 8pm
The Edge Theater
5451 N. Broadway Street, Chicago
https://pivotarts.org/events/rosina-remixed/
The Rosina Project, a feminist performance? It should be noted from the top that The Rosina Project did not originate as a feminist project. But like many artistic endeavors, the project took many turns and grew through its collaborative process. Allow me to offer a brief background on the project. George Cederquist initially came up with the idea to create an adaptation of Gioachino Antonio Rossini’s opera The Barber of Seville. Cederquist partnered with several creatives, including K.F. Jacques, Kelsa “K-Soul” Robinson, and BRAVEMONK of BraveSoul Movement. What came from this artistic team was a hip-hop, immersive re-visioning of Rossini’s opera.
Now enter Marisol “Pinqy Ring” Vélez – (known colloquially as Pinqy). Upon meeting Pinqy, who was slated from the start to play Countess Rosina, Cederquist recounts, “this show needs to be rebuilt, and it needed to be rebuilt” around Pinqy and her character, Rosina. And there you have it: a turn towards a feminist re-visioning of Rossini’s opera now called The Rosina Project.
My use of the term “re-visioning” is borrowed from theatre scholar Sharon Friedman’s introduction to her edited collection, Feminist Theatrical Revisions of Classic Works. Friedman writes,
Re-visioning the classics, often in a subversive mode, has evolved into its own theatrical genre in recent years, and many of these productions have been informed by feminist theory and practice. The avant-garde feminist theater has become a site for imaginative re-interpretations of myth, classical and modern drama, the novel, and even the personal and philosophical essay. As feminist critics began to use historicist, psychoanalytic, and deconstructive approaches to probe constructions of gender absorbed and interpreted by dramatic works, playwrights and directors – working in this cultural milieu – have experimented with dramatic form, mise-en-scène, language, and the body to foreground and re-present images of women and gender ideology woven into canonical texts, established by genres, and theater practices. These productions transcend reproductions and adaptation to become theatrical dialogues with their source texts. The aim is to “invoke that work and yet be different from it.
As such, my use of re-vision to discuss the work happening around The Rosina Project considers the contemporary iteration of the classical opera and the generative possibilities it offers audiences. But is it enough to put a woman-identified character played by a self-proclaimed feminist at the center of a classical opera and call it a feminist performance?
To help elucidate the question, I met with Pinqy, and we discussed the part she played – both on and off the stage – to offer insight into the re-visioning of Rossini’s opera. What I learned during our conversation was she played a pivotal role in pushing the project to be more gender-inclusive overall. Pinqy recalls: “I don’t think it was a feminist piece when it began simply because it was men at the project's helm. There were moments when I had to push back.” For example, Pinqy made it clear that she was not a “damsel in distress” in real life; thus, she would not be taking on such a role for the stage. Pinqy points to the notion that feminist re-revisioning is not just about what happens on the stage, but what happens off the stage - that is, in the creative room - is just as important. In other words, representation matters, particularly when it comes to who makes decisions about the creation and development of the performance.
Image by Vin Reed. Center: Pinqy Ring, Background: Peyton 'Skrollz' Yang
Pinqy credits George Cederquist as he made sure that her voice was heard and valued throughout the process. Even more, Cederquist made sure that Pinqy's ideas were implemented along with the other creative team members. For instance, Pinqy was responsible for writing several of the songs as well as adding to dialogue to help flesh out the characters, accordingly, developing a fully dimensional story. Pinqy further notes that there were moments when she had to navigate the male ego prevalent throughout the creative process. Pinqy suggests that the project would benefit from a dramaturg specializing in feminist thought and performance to remedy this. She states, “If we’re going to go in a different direction from the original [opera], then that is what’s needed for the next iteration. If I’m the only one giving a feminist perspective, then everything will fall by the wayside.” What Pinqy is expressing is moving beyond the possibility of a feminist re-visioning and being more intentional about the feminist framing of The Rosina Project.
My own experience with the performance and delighting in the feminist possibilities was due to some of Rosina’s lyrics. Her opening song is just one example:
Ay yo my name is Rosina - Can call me RoRo if you nasty
And you know I’m a Queen - a little ratchet hella classy
Super smart big heart with bars respect my art
And pardon my arrogance but any man I’ll outsmart
So take a hard left turn down to the ‘Ville
And I ain’t talking J. Cole but lights please cuz I’m ill
So sick germs in me gesundheit with the prose
Ain’t got time for these stooges, Larry, Curly, and Moe
So, here’s my problemo: who’s for me? I don’t know
And sitting around waiting for love? I can’t go
So even with the best intentions I’m confused
Cuz I don’t think my life was intended for these dudes
But we gon see, maybe one of them will attract me
Knowing I’m a free bird, a Queen of thirst trappin
An I gotta go hard, cuz it’s the end of my bars
So I stick em with a pointy end like Arya Stark
With the above lyrics, Rosina (played by Pinqy) is defiant of a masculinist world. More specifically, Rosina’s opening song, among her other songs throughout the production, animates a “re-vision [of] classis texts [that] continue to move women center stage and foreground the concerns of the women characters in the context of the canonical work and our contemporary understanding of its themes.” Not only does Rosina destabilize the original narrative presented in The Barber of Seville through her song, but she inspires audiences to consider the dynamics of gender through a contemporary form, namely hip-hop aesthetics, in which they can relate.
For instance, Pinqy revels in the positive feedback from audiences, especially women and non-binary folk: “That made me feel empowered. I felt as though you were talking to me.” Many of the audiences were able to feel empowered, according to Pinqy, because by the time the performance ends, “Rosina wins and she chooses herself instead of having to select from a limited option of men. It’s a strong woman deciding her own fate and being powerful and strong in her own agency.” What the audience’s responses are alluding to is materializing of hip-hop feminism. Accordingly, the character Rosina embodies the ideals of hip-hop feminism best articulated in the works of Joan Morgan, Brittney Cooper, and Elaine Richardson, among others. Expanding upon and simultaneously pushing the frameworks given to us by Black feminist thought, hip-hop feminism contests outdated notions of womanhood – even those ideals espoused by pioneering Black feminists that revel in respectability politics. Calling upon Joan Morgan’s early elucidation of hip-hop feminism, Elaine Richardson writes that the “Hip Hop sensible feminist is true to herself, self-reliant, and independent, as she cannot depend on long-term commitments and idealism.” She further contends that “Hip Hop feminists must be reflective and take responsibility for their own actions.”
Image by Vin Reed. Front: Sophia “Sophia” Bevilacqua, Background from left: Lani 'Jiig Sixx' Anderson, Daniel 'BRAVEMONK' Haywood, Orlando 'Juice' de Leon, Austin Fillmore, Way back from left: DJ Oliver Fade, Andy Aughenbaugh
Before concluding this response, I want to discuss an element of The Rosina Project that contributes to its re-visioning, which is the dance/choreographic component. Steeped in hip-hop culture, the dancing bodies on the stage illuminate a praxis that, at its core, is revolutionary. To the point: the dance element of The Rosina Project is revolutionary because of the diversity of the dancing bodies that highlights a cross-cultural framework that further emphasizes the corporeal and social identities of the people who make up the world today. As such, the “imaginative and performative aspects of dance, therefore, offers a space, a framework, a language for the culturally diverse” with the potential to develop “imaginative worlds where new ideas, perceptions, and possibilities are enfleshed, and brought to a visceral reality.”