Educational Media Reviews Online

Focusing on Kristina Boerger, founder of the lesbian/feminist chorus Amasong in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, this enjoyable hour-long video, made for a general television audience, traces Boerger’s biography (including supportive parents, Catholic girls’ school education, losing a job to homophobia, political activist reaction, and decision to fight back through music, her preeminent talent) and spends most of its time on her work with the women’s chorus she created in the early 1990s on the Illinois prairie. Interviews with singers help reveal the emotional ties chorus members have to the group and to each other; at one point, healing chanting is done on behalf of a chorister and she later speaks of her sense that the chorus is her “church.” As the skill of the group developed, so did its sense of community and its contributions to the wider community of Champaign-Urbana, where its presence helped bring gay and straight people together in a supportive audience (though one non-lesbian alto explains that in all the years she’d been with the group she had never persuaded her homophobic parents to attend a concert). Amasong won a Gay and Lesbian American Music Award for a song on their first CD and after Boerger moved to New York and continued her musical career, the chorus continued under new direction.

The group was not founded to sing only women-identified music, and its repertoire includes music by men (from classical composers to Bobby McFerrin) and music with folk origins. A generous sampling of Amasong’s well-honed sound is both foreground and background in this well-edited film, which includes use of older stock (from Amasong’s first concert), subtle outdoor shots indicating that the gun-loving culture of the town also supported a Unitarian church where Amasong could rehearse and perform, and added visual interest from still photos and clippings.

Imagine compromises an American Midwestern TV film about a lesbian/feminist group might have to make: no PDAs between women (one under-the-shirt backrub, a bit of reassuring handholding, and one exuberant kiss of congratulatory greeting allowed); bring as many straight people into the film as possible (done, via interviews with chorus members and parents); do not explain what “feminism” means to the group (done; but showing what bonding among women signifies for the individuals in the chorus conveyed the message); give men plenty of time (done: Boerger’s “J.S. Bach” license plate is shown and discussed, her father and some men from the audience speak, and Bobby McFerrin’s picture flashes on the screen, a rather lonely representative of people of color). The result is a feel-good movie about community building (when it is not about Kristina Boerger). However noble the message, the video seems of questionable academic use. Unitarian congregations will love this film, as might other groups devoted to bringing diverse people together. Recommended for collections of videos used in collegiate extra-curricular efforts at cross-cultural understanding.

Awards

• Official Selection, San Francisco International Lesbian & Gay Film Festival