Tohe pens libretto for Navajo oratorio

January 18, 2008

As part of its 60th anniversary season, the Phoenix Symphony decided to commission a work to celebrate the vibrant musical and cultural heritage of Arizona.<separator></separator>Thus was born “Enemy Slayer, A Navajo Oratorio,” with libretto by ASU’s Laura Tohe, a Navajo and an associate professor of English, and music by Phoenix composer Mark Grey.<separator></separator>The oratorio will have its premiere performances at 7:30 p.m., Feb. 7, and 8 p.m., Feb. 9, at Phoenix’s Symphony Hall.<separator></separator>Tohe has been working on the libretto for the oratorio – her first – for the past year in collaboration with Grey.<separator></separator>The story is that of Seeker, a figure adapted from Navajo mythology who was born to protect the Navajo people and rid the world of monsters.<separator></separator>In Tohe’s oratorio, Seeker is a war veteran – perhaps from the Iraqi conflict – who comes back from battle with a feeling of pride at having served his country.<separator></separator>“But the violence of war comes back to him as a dream,” Tohe says. “Then the dreams start invading his life. He descends into a dark place and has thoughts about self-destruction. At the same time, the ancestors are calling him back. The story implies that words have power, that they can be dangerous.<separator></separator>“As Seeker descends to the darkest part, there’s a moment when the voices of the ancestors break through. They offer him a lifeline and lift him out. He comes back into wholeness, and to living a more balanced life: hózhô (translated as “peace and spiritual harmony”).” Tohe says she didn’t have the Iraq conflict in mind when she started writing “Enemy Slayer,” and that she didn’t intend to make a statement on the Iraqi war.<separator></separator>“It’s a timeless story about human beings who go off to war,” she says.<separator></separator>Before starting to write the libretto, Tohe did extensive research about how veterans cope with war, and discovered that “there is a high rate of suicide and drug and alcohol abuse that is occurring among veterans who come back from Iraq.”<separator></separator>“It makes me wonder what it takes to be healed from these things,” she says. “In Navajo culture, there’s a ceremony to restore veterans to a state of well-being.”<separator></separator>That ceremony comes from Navajo mythology, Tohe says, adding: “There are heroes who are born to rid the world of monsters. To do that, they had to kill the monsters. When they came back, they had to have a ceremony, called the ‘Enemy Way.’ ”<separator></separator>Tohe says the composer’s idea originally was to write a Navajo creation story, “but that would have been controversial, since the creation story belongs within a sacred ceremony in the context of Navajo culture.”<separator></separator>Tohe had never written an oratorio before, and she didn’t know quite where to start.<separator></separator>She and Grey spent one day at Starbucks hashing out the storyline, and they decided to structure the story on the four cardinal directions in Navajo mythology: east, south, west and north.<separator></separator>“Then I said, ‘Mark, how do I write this?’ ” she says. “He said, ‘Write short lines.’ I wrote several lines and e-mailed them to him. Once I got the first few stanzas down, Mark started composing. He had an idea of how he wanted to compose the music.”<separator></separator>The back-and-forth went on for nine months, with Tohe sending poetry and Grey setting it to music.<separator></separator>Some of the words are in English, while some are in Navajo. Tohe also has spent some time with the chorus teaching the singers to pronounce the Navajo words.<separator></separator>Projected behind the orchestra and chorus will be photographs of the Four Sacred Mountains, taken by Deborah O’Grady.<separator></separator>The oratorio opens with a prologue: <separator></separator>Red earth below his feet <separator></separator>Red Earth with open arms <separator></separator>The ground feels familiar <separator></separator>Earth-surface child returns home <separator></separator>From across the big water. <separator></separator>Seeker returns home <separator></separator>Earth Surface child returns <separator></separator>From across the big water <separator></separator>Traveling lightly on a rainbow <separator></separator>And leaves the reign of blood <separator></separator>He calls forth, “shik’éí, shidiné’é” (translated, “my relatives, my people”). <separator></separator>It concludes on a hopeful note, with the phrase “let peace prevail” repeated four times: <separator></separator>Hózhô náhásdlîî dooleeã. <separator></separator>Hózhô náhásdlîî dooleeã. <separator></separator>Hózhô náhásdlîî dooleeã. <separator></separator>Hózhô náhásdlîî dooleeã.<separator></separator>Those words are Tohe’s hope – and the message she hopes “Enemy Slayer” will bring to the world.<separator></separator>Tickets for both performances of “Enemy Slayer” range from $19 to $68. For more information, call the Phoenix Symphony Box office at (602) 495-1999, or visit the Web site <a href="http://www.phoenixsymphony.org/tickets">www.phoenixsymphony.org/tickets…;