The UW Theatre and Dance department will be performing “Six Songs from Ellis,” to illustrate an immigration story of the 1900s taking a theatrical form of song and dance.
The performances will be at the Buchanan Center for Performing Arts Tuesday, April 24 through Saturday, April 28 at 7:30 p.m. with the last performance on Sunday, April 29 at 2 p.m.
“Six Songs from Ellis” is inspired by Ellis Island, which recorded a history of immigrants who passed through Ellis during the height of immigration. Most people came through the island in the early 1900s until about 1922 when the immigration policy changed.
The songs represent a thematic story. The first song, “The Walk Away,” depicts why people left their homes, what their conditions were, circumstances and what they were looking for. The second song, “The Song of Light,” depicts the stories of those who chose to leave versus those who were forced to leave.
“There are two points which I chose to focus on, most having to do with refugees fleeing their home is the genocide of Jews and Nazi Germany and the Armenian genocides centered around 1915 and so those are two large groups of oral history that I have edited together in the second song,” UW Dance Professor Marsha Fay Knight said.
The third song, “Water Underfoot,” depicts the refugees’ experiences when traveling by boat. The fourth song, “Landing On Two Feet,” which is about their arrival at Ellis Island and their impressions of the process of entry; the inspections and how they were treated upon landing. The fifth song, “A Change of Current,” holds some of the stories of people who hit obstacles regarding their immigration experience with fear of being treated unfairly.
The sixth and final song, “At The Lady’s Feet,” portrays immigrants’ impressions of seeing the Statue of Liberty for the first time and their reflections on becoming an American and their contributions as immigrants to the culture and society.
The show consists of 21 cast members and a substantial backstage crew.
“It’s dance, it’s theatre, there is a lot of text because every single bit of text in the show is based on the oral history and the transcriptions but also we have the actual audio of some of these immigrants very carefully edited so that we have a mixture of actor speaking the words from the transcriptions and also the actual voices of the immigrants that come into the piece,” Knight said.
Knight visited Ellis Island in the 1980s. The effort in the 1970s extending to 1980s included an oral history project to revitalize the Island and open a “National Museum of Immigration.”
“I went there in the 80s and they have these little bits of oral history that you can listen to as part of the gallery exhibits that they have,” Knight said. “I thought this sounded to me like I can do something with it. I thought about it for a long time and in 2009 produced an original version of this at UW.”
Haley Nigro, UW dance major and “Six Songs from Ellis” cast member, said, “I think that it’s a really long process but very rewarding. So as [the performance debut] comes and we are finally able to share with audiences we put a lot of work in making it meaningful and relevant to people, I am really excited to share and see the responses.”
