Founded by writer and educator Sam Bullington, Phoenix, Colorado’s Transgender Community Choir is a collaborative, intergenerational social justice arts collective based in Broomfield. With singers from all over the Front Range, this is not your traditional chorus.
Phoenix is described as more of a safe space to take risks of self-exploration around gender and identity, creativity, voice, leadership, and community building. Many of the members identify as trans, but this choir is home for anyone who does not fit neatly into the gender binary, as well as touched by trans issues. OUT FRONT had the pleasure of chatting more with Bullington about the choir and their upcoming performance at Aurora Pride.
Let’s begin by chatting a bit more about the choir’s history. When was it founded, and why did you want to start it?
Phoenix was started because it needed to exist. There is an LGBTQ choral organization named GALA that has big festivals with hundreds of choral performances every four years. I went to the GALA 2012 Festival in Denver and was shocked to find zero trans anything there. I vowed it wouldn’t happen again in 2016, even if I had to start my own chorus. So, in fall 2015, that is exactly what I did.
What can audiences expect from your performance at Aurora Pride?
They can expect to be touched and inspired. We are a very heartfelt and soulful group who prioritize moving, inspiring, encouraging, educating, and awakening our audiences more than entertaining them.
They can also expect to be invited to sing along with us. We are a collaborative organization, and we love to collaborate with our audiences. Phoenix is ultimately a welcoming place of community as well as a space of growth and risk-taking, so we invite our audiences to become a part of it rather than just sitting there passively.
Is this your first Pride festival performance?
We actually had our first Pride performance on June 12. We performed at Melodies of Pride with the Mile High Freedom Band.
What are you looking forward to the most about this Aurora Pride performance?
I have never been to Aurora Pride before, so I am excited to check it out. I like that there are local alternatives to the big Denver celebration. Phoenix sings at a lot of community events, so one of the benefits of being in Phoenix is getting to attend a lot of cool events!
How would you say Phoenix is unique and stands out from other LGBTQ-oriented choirs?
We are very different from other LGBTQ choirs. Since we believe trans people are innovators, we feel compelled to reinvent what a choir is and how an organization runs. We are a collaborative arts collective, so we have a multi-headed leadership model very different from the usual top down leadership of most choirs. And we write a lot of our own material, which is very unusual. At the 2016 LGBT choral festival, we were the only chorus that performed all-original songs.
Do you have to identify as trans to be a member of Phoenix?
You do not need to be trans-identified to be a part of Phoenix. Core to our mission is to be a place where everyone touched by trans issues can be together. So, we have many folks in Phoenix who are parents, partners, friends, and allies, as well as many who are exploring their own gender and figuring out where they fit.
Recently, one of the Phoenix members told me that one of their favorite things about Phoenix as an organization is that they do not actually know who in Phoenix is trans-identified. We are governed by a trans sensibility as an organization, but so many trans spaces leave people feeling not trans enough, and we are not one of those spaces.
We are a safe space of self-exploration for everyone who feels called to be with us.
What do you hope choir members gain by being part of this group?
A space of belonging. As a non-binary trans person, it has been very challenging for me over my lifetime to find where I belonged in a binary society. What I most hope members find in Phoenix is a sense of home.
What have you personally gained by being the founder and director?
Personally, it is very fulfilling to watch your vision come to fruition in the real world—from a particular song I thought would be great for an event to the existence of Phoenix itself. Phoenix has been a space of growth for me as well, continually doing things well beyond my comfort zone.
I have met some wonderful people, and we have created together a very loving and nurturing family that has become important to people. That is very special to me.
How would you say the choir has evolved over the past couple of years?
We have nearly doubled in size in the last year. When Trump launched his attack on trans people last fall, I posted on Facebook that trans people looking for a refuge and cisgender people looking to concretely show their support for trans communities should consider singing with Phoenix for a month, since we had a cluster of performances around Halloween. We had 12 new people at the next rehearsal, and most of them have stayed on.
What are some accomplishments/goals you would like Phoenix to achieve within the next year or so?
When we first started, we got a lot of what I call trans pity applause, where people gave us a standing ovation just for coming out onto the stage. As we have matured, we have begun to step more and more into a place of leadership by bringing our expansive social justice vision, as much about racial and economic justice, and gender justice more broadly, as trans/queer issues. I would like to continue growing in that role.
Do you have any other upcoming performances scheduled?
We will be singing during the opening ceremony of the Arise Music Festival on August 2, and we will be performing at Javastop in Longmont in September. Then, at the end of September, we will be embarking on our second choir tour. Last spring, we went to the Twin Cities and sang at the Trans Voices Festival, with a concert in Omaha with the River City Mixed Chorus on the way. This year, we are headed to Portland and performing our original play, Raven’s True Self, at elementary schools in Salt Lake City and Boise en route.
For more information about Phoenix, contact Bullington at sam.bullington@colorado.edu or like and follow their Facebook page.
