Music Video Co-Creation
the “Climates of Resistance: Raise Your Voice” project
Raise Your Voice Labs applies methods of musical peacebuilding, facilitated dialogue, and circle singing to help groups find their common ground, share concerns, and voice their collective identity through musical co-creation. Echoing a major tenet in environmental justice, the process is as important as the product: being heard and actively engaging in decision-making is crucial to community empowerment and just outcomes.
Each semester, the “Climates of Resistance: Raise Your Voice” project brings together scholarship and art to produce a music video celebrating the course community and highlighting diverse perspectives in environmental justice.
How does this work?
we start with a musical dialogue in class...
Austin Willacy kicks us off with an environmental song (example: https://youtu.be/dJLai7PdufY?t=185)
we split into breakout groups to consider these prompts:
Identify three someones or somethings that are undervalued in conversations about the environment. Imagine each one as a friend, family member, or loved one.
What kind(s) of power do they have?
How do they support you? How do they support others? How do they support the ecosystem? Where would you/we be without them?
What are they trying to ‘say’ to you/us? What would they want us to know?
and then Micah creates an improv song, right then and there, based on what we share! (example: https://youtu.be/dJLai7PdufY?t=2026)
after our brainstorming workshop, Austin and Micah create a backing track, and we invite submissions with the guidance below:
Listen: to the backing track created by the Raise Your Voice team, inspired by a dialogue workshop with the Syracuse students.
Create: your contribution! You can share anything that is textual, visual and/or sonic, and it will be edited into the music video. Examples of what you could do:
sing: follow the Raise Your Voice Labs’ guidelines to sing along with the backing track
play: any instrument you like...you can add to the melody lines, create a harmony, improv something, or anything else you want to layer on
write: additional lyrics – which you can sing yourself, with any melody or rhythm that makes sense with the backing track, or email lyrics to info@climatesofresistance.org, and the professional musicians can make your words come alive
draw: a protest sign, and film yourself holding it up
paint: an underrepresented stakeholder, image of nature, or anything you want to express visually – you can send a photo of the final product, or a video of you as you paint
dance: share some physical movement: you can interpret the main lyrics through dance, or add a message of your own
sign: film yourself sharing an environmental message in sign language
translate: we would love to hear additional languages! Translate the main English phrase (“the wrong Amazon is burning, and the wrong ice is melting”) or add your own phrase.
capture: some sounds of nature on your daily walk: birdsong, a river, leaves rustling, mosquitoes buzzing...anything you think we should take time to listen to!
share: anything else you would like, in any format: we want as many kinds of ‘voices’ as we can get!
Be sure to follow the recording guidance from Raise Your Voice Labs, so we can spotlight you in the best quality.