A CONVERSATION ABOUT HGO-COMMISSIONED WORLD-PREMIERE OPERA INTELLIGENCE
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 25 / 6:30–8 PM
BUFFALO SOLDIERS NATIONAL MUSEUM
Presented in partnership with the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum
Quodesia “Quo” Johnson (she/ her) is an equity specialist, racial equity coach, healing practitioner, speaker, and community facilitator recognized nationally for her unique approach to shaping spaces of collaboration and creativity in the nonprofit arts, culture, education, and justice sectors. The Prairie View A&M University alumna serves a national community of arts, culture, and education organizations as a collaborative consultant (Quo Johnson Co Project, LLC); creator, content curator, and cohost of Taking the Stage with Kristian and Quo; company culture consultant (The Dallas Opera); social justice advisor (OPERA America); racial equity coach (Dallas Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation); and founder and space moderator (Black Administrators of Opera).
Gene Scheer is a frequent collaborator with composer Jake Heggie, with three of their works making their world premieres at HGO: It’s a Wonderful Life (2016), Three Decembers , which starred Frederica von Stade (2008); and the song cycle Pieces of 9/1 1 (2011). The two also collaborated on the critically acclaimed 2010 Dallas Opera world premiere Moby-Dick , starring Ben Heppner as Captain Ahab; the lyric drama To Hell and Back (Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra), which featured Patti LuPone; and Camille Claudel: Into the Fire , a song cycle premiered by Joyce DiDonato and the Alexander String Quartet. Scheer worked as librettist with Tobias Picker on An American Tragedy , which premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in 2005. Their first opera, Therese Raquin , written for the Dallas Opera in 2001, was cited by Opera News as one of the ten best recordings of 2002. Other collaborations include the lyrics for Wynton Marsalis’s “It Never Goes Away,” featured in Congo Square; the Grammy-nominated oratorio August 4, 1964, with composer Steven Stucky; the opera Everest with composer Joby Talbot, premiered by the Dallas Opera in 2015; and the opera Cold Mountain with composer Jennifer Higdon, premiered by the Santa Fe Opera in 2015 (International Opera Award for Best World Premiere in 2015). Also a composer, Scheer has written a number of songs for singers such as Renée Fleming, Sylvia McNair, Stephanie Blythe, Jennifer Larmore, Denyce Graves, and Nathan Gunn. Scheer’s song “American Anthem,” sung by Norah Jones, was featured in Ken Burns’s Emmy Award-winning documentary The War .
In 1984, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar founded Urban Bush Women as a performance ensemble dedicated to exploring the use of cultural expression as a catalyst for social change. Her most recent honors include the 2022 APAP Honors Award of Merit for Achievement in the Performing Arts, the 2022 Dorothy and Lilian Gish Prize, and a 2021 fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. In addition to 34 works for UBW, she has created works for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Philadanco, University of Maryland, Virginia Commonwealth University, and others. UBW has toured five continents and has performed at venues including Brooklyn Academy of Music, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and The Kennedy Center, and in 2010 was selected as one of three U.S. dance companies to inaugurate a cultural diplomacy program for the U.S. Department of State. Zollar serves as director of the Urban Bush Women Summer Leadership Institute, which enables artists to strengthen effective involvement in cultural organizing and civic engagement. A former board member of Dance/USA, Zollar received a 2008 United States Artists Wynn fellowship and a 2009 fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial. She received the 2013 Arthur L. Johnson Memorial Award, the 2013 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, the 2015 Dance Magazine Award, the 2016 Dance/USA Honor Award, the 2017 Bessies Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2021 Dance Teacher Award of Distinction, and the 2021 Martha Hill Dance Fund Lifetime Achievement Award. She holds honorary degrees from Columbia College, Chicago, Tufts University, Rutgers University, and the Muhlenberg College. She is the Nancy Smith Fichter Professor of Dance and Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor at Florida State University.
Cale Carter is the Director of Exhibitions for the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum. His lifelong passion for history brought him to the BSNM to serve as a volunteer docent in 2008. Carter attended Lone Star College North Harris before transferring to Huston-Tillotson University, where he majored in History and minored in Political Science. While at Huston-Tillotson, Carter was a fellow in the Mellon-Mays Undergraduate Fellowship and conducted research in the French Military Archives on an Afro-French aviator who served in the French Air Force during World War II. In addition to being a Mellon fellow, Carter was also a fellow at the Institute for the Recruitment of Teachers. When not in class, Carter was an interpretive assistant with the Texas State Parks and Wildlife Buffalo Soldiers Heritage and Outreach program, where he worked as a living historian portraying the 25th Infantry Regiment on the western frontier as well as World War II. After graduating Summa Cum Laude with a BA in History, he returned to his home state of South Carolina, where he worked with ColumbiaSC63, a civil rights history organization, and the South Carolina Military Museum as a Curator of Exhibitions.
HARRISON GUY
Harrison Guy (he/him) is an activist, choreographer, cultural architect, and community builder who uses a movement-based practice to document, preserve, and honor Black history and culture. A founding member of Exclamation Dance Company and Dorrell Martin’s Dance Fusion, in 2004 he founded the Urban Souls Dance Company, which focuses on providing a safe space for Black dancers to learn and share Black stories. Guy has captivated audiences across the nation through his inspirational and unique works of truth, beauty, and activism. Using his personal identity as a Black gay man as a catalyst, he is interested in how Black life and African American traditions might be accessed in the pursuit of healing. He has facilitated a cultural exchange in Kigali, Rwanda, and in 2015 was commissioned to create a work at Vanderbilt University to honor one of America’s most prominent composers, John Harbison. In 2016 he launched Houston’s first African American Dance Festival, and he also founded Black Arts Movement Houston, a gathering space for local creatives. Guy was the inaugural Artist in Residence at Rice University through the Center for Engaged Research and Collaborative Learning Department, where he presented a project for Black students and the community called Black Bodies in White Spaces. He is the founder of the Charles Law Community Archive through the Black LGBTQ History & Heritage Project with the African American Library at The Gregory School, as well as the Director of Arts and Culture for the 5th Ward Community Redevelopment Corporation, where he leads the 5th Cultural Arts District and manages the Historic DeLUXE Theater. He is a member of the dance faculty at the Kinder High School for Performing & Visual Arts; a 2022 Dance/USA Artist Fellow made possible by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation; and one of the inaugural recipients of the BIPOC Art Network and Fellowship Artist Award 2023.
DENIZ LOPEZ
deniz ‘dee!colonize’ lopez is a Xicana artist and activist who was born and raised in Denver Harbor, Houston. She has held positions and collaborated with organizations including MECHA, The Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement, The Word Around Town Poetry Tour, Creative Women Unite, and Voices Breaking Boundaries to bring to the forefront a message of revolution, self-sustainability, and community consciousness. Central themes in her artistry include the abolition of the death penalty, an end to police brutality, empowerment of women, immigration rights, Black/ Brown unity, Indigenous culture and history, and self-mastery. For 20 years, lopez has cultivated an extensive knowledge of community organization, administration, communication, and mentoring to become a creative consultant to organizations and artists seeking to bolster their brands. She is a founding member and owner of All Real Radio LLC, where, since 2014, the mission has been to make the world better by creating a portal to great music, relevant social commentary, and community spaces for events and awareness.
