[Peace] Local pride on WILL-TV tomorrow

[Kranich, Kimberlie]

Hi, all.

WILL-TV proudly presents two local broadcasts tomorrow featuring Amasong:
Champaign-Urbana's premiere lesbian/feminist chorus and Lois Steinberg, of
the Yoga Institute and AWARE.

Please see the following descriptions for more information. Hope you can
tune-in.

Kimberlie
*********************************************

Tuesday, November 4, 8pm
"The Alternative Fix Illinois"

Live from the WILL-TV studio, this program looks at local "alternative"
medicine including yoga therapy (Losi Steinberg), chiropractic care, healing
massage and others.  This is a precursor to the Frontline broadcast of
"Alternate Fix" Thursday night at 9pm on WILL-TV.  See
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/altmed/ for more information
on the national show.

Tuesday, November 4, 9pm (repeated Friday, November 6 at 9pm)
Amasong Choir Singing Out

THE AMASONG CHORUS: SINGING OUT

After her sexual orientation became an issue for an employer, Kristina
Boerger was apprehensive about continuing to work as a musician.
The only way she could do so, she figured, was to put the word "lesbian"
right out front. Thus when she began recruiting women for a choral group,
she chose the name: Amasong: Champaign-Urbana's Premier Lesbian/Feminist
Choir.
She didn't care if the women were young or old, lesbian or straight,
experienced or not. "I took any warm body," she said. She just wanted to
bring women together and provide a safe community for lesbians in the area. 
The story of Amasong is the focus of a new documentary by Jay Rosenstein, a
University of Illinois assistant professor of journalism. The Amasong
Chorus: Singing Out premieres on WILL-TV at 9 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 4, and 9
p.m. Friday, Nov. 7, and will air nationally on the PBS program Independent
Lens on June 8, 2004. 
Boerger, a perfectionist and skilled teacher, transformed the group of
mostly beginners into an award-winning 60-member chorus singing a complex
and diverse repertoire. Just as important as the group's musical growth was
the growth in acceptance by the local community. Early concerts drew a
handful of friends. But before long, the group's bi-annual concerts sold
out. "It's hard for people to judge music in the same way they judge sexual
orientation," choir member Heidi Reible said. "I think that's probably the
bridge. I think Amasong has played some small part in the community to
create those bridges." 
Rosenstein said he began the Amasong documentary four years ago after
hearing about Boerger's story. "I knew from the start that she was an
incredibly powerful, charismatic leader," he said. He had never made a
documentary in which music was a central element, although he once played
rock music professionally and his interest in documentaries had been fueled
by his interest in using music to go along with images on the screen.
Rosenstein, who produced, wrote and edited the 1997 documentary In Whose
Honor? American Indian Mascots in Sports, describes his newest documentary
as a "quiet film." "It is a social issue film but in a quiet way," he said.
 "Any time you show lesbians and gays or other minority groups doing normal
things in normal spaces, it helps to normalize their image," he said. "It's
not a film that will bring about social change in the way In Whose Honor?
has." In Whose Honor?, which looked at the U of I's Chief Illiniwek and
other controversial American Indian sports mascots, aired nationally on the
PBS series P.O.V. Rosenstein said it inspired coverage of the issue by many
mainstream media outlets and played an integral part in the change away from
Indian names or mascots at more than two dozen colleges and high schools. 
The Amasong Chorus: Singing Out, a co-production of WILL-TV, was produced in
association with the Independent Television Service with funding provided by
the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Article from Inside Illinois:
Documentary profiles Amasong, local lesbian/feminist chorus 
By Melissa Mitchell, News Bureau Staff Writer
217-333-5491; melissa at uiuc.edu <mailto:melissa at uiuc.edu>
When then-UI music student Kristina Boerger set out to organize a
lesbian/feminist choral ensemble in 1991, she drew women in with a
hand-lettered poster announcing that the choir was open to any woman who
could sing. Or, as Amasong member Raeann Dossett recalls in a new film about
the choir, the sign indicated that "if you can carry a tune in a bucket,
you're welcome."

More than a decade later, the collective voices of Amasong - self-described
as "Champaign-Urbana's premier lesbian/feminist chorus" - have hit more high
notes than Boerger could ever have imagined possible. Amasong's evolution -
from an amateur ensemble with shared sexual and political identities to an
award-winning choir and community staple - is captured in UI journalism
professor Jay Rosenstein's documentary "The Amasong Chorus: Singing Out."

Rosenstein said the 53-minute film, which he produced, directed, wrote and
edited, has played to "packed and sold-out" crowds - and even received a
standing ovation - at lesbian and gay film festivals in Australia, Italy and
San Francisco. Amasong's loyal hometown following will finally get the
chance to see the film when it receives its local premier at 9 p.m. Oct. 8
at the Beckman Institute auditorium. The event, part of the campus's
yearlong Brown v. Board Jubilee Commemoration, is free and open to the
public.

The film - a co-production of WILL-TV, produced in association with the
Independent Television Service, with funding provided by the Corporation for
Public Broadcasting - will be broadcast locally on WILL-TV at 9 p.m. Nov. 4
and 7. The documentary also will be broadcast by the Public Broadcasting
Service on June 8 as part of the Independent Lens series. 

Unlike past documentaries Rosenstein has produced, such as "In Whose
Honor?", which explored the Chief Illiniwek controversy at Illinois, the
Amasong film was created with the sole goal of profiling the ensemble and
Boerger, its dynamic founder-director. "It's not meant to be persuasive,"
Rosenstein said; instead, it "mirrors the way Amasong has been integrated
into the community."

The journalism professor said he got the idea to profile the group after
attending their biannual performances. "I had been going to see them for a
few years, and I liked them. But I kept thinking, 'there's a lot more here
than meets the eye.' I also realized that Kristina had an interesting
background, and thought I could tell a compelling story."

As it turned out, Rosenstein said, the film explores more than one story
line. "There is the rags-to-riches story," he said, which "shows how Amasong
went from being this amateur group to a national-award-winning ensemble." In
1998, the ensemble won a GLAMA award from the Gay and Lesbian American Music
Association for its recording "The Water is Sweet Over Here." The award is
informally regarded as the gay and lesbian equivalent of the Grammy award.
In 2000, Amasong picked up two more GLAMA awards.


The other storyline that runs through the documentary, Rosenstein said, "is
the way in which the group becomes a mainstream, acceptable part of the
community. "It's about how social justice gets done. Before you know it,
they were accepted. It's a subtle thing and hard to show because it happens
gradually, over time."
Nonetheless, Rosenstein was motivated by the challenge of trying to show
"how their skill as musicians could help transcend some prejudices." Under
Boerger's enthusiastic, yet tireless and intensely professional direction,
he said, "Amasong became too good to pigeonhole as this lesbian group, and
they had the courage not to hide that." Their collective courage, he added,
"came from Kristina. That was the part that was non-negotiable for her -
that the community come to her on her terms."

"I think she's an amazing woman," Rosenstein said. "She has incredible
drive, focus and on top of that, she's a musical genius."

Boerger, who earned a doctorate in choral conducting from the UI School of
Music while directing Amasong, now lives in New York, where she sings in a
choir, conducts and teaches at Barnard College.