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Chorus Started By Music Lecturer Kristina Boerger Subject of PBS Documentary
 Thirteen years ago, music lecturer Kristina Boerger, then a graduate student, gathered a group of women to form a first lesbian/feminist chorus in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. The resulting Amasong Chorus, which began humbly but developed into a nationally-recognized and award-winning ensemble, is the subject of a documentary to be broadcast nationally on PBS on June 15th.
Titled The Amasong Chorus: Singing Out, the documentary tells the inspirational story of how the chorus succeeded musically and most importantly, how it was accepted into the conservative Illinois community, drawing large audiences as well as members from the straight community.
For Boerger, the seemingly unlikely friendships that formed between
members of the chorus -- many of whom were women of progressive politics and alternative sexualities -- and conservatives from the community, is profound.
"Within a few years, We had these huge audiences and had to rent a hall two nights a week," Boerger says. "It was this celebration of positivity and support."
Directed by Jay Rosenstein, Amasong will air nationally on the PBS series Independent Lens, hosted by actor Don Cheadle, on Tuesday, June 15th at 10 P.M. (check local listings).
In 1990, Boerger posted hand-lettered flyers in Champaign-Urbana, home of the University of Illinois, inviting women of all orientations to join the group.
"I wanted to connect my social and political community with my artistic practice," says Boerger. "At the time, those two worlds had been fairly starkly divided for me. I thought this would be a great use of creative potential to integrate them."
She assembled a ragtag group of women-some of whom could barely sing-and created for them a repertoire heavy on female composers and eclectic world music. The group initially performed for loyal audiences of family and friends, but over a period of four or five years, Boerger transformed the chorus into a polished, nationally-recognized, award-winning ensemble.
Boerger and the filmmaker, Jay Rosenstein, knew one another when he suggested making the documentary in 1997. Boerger was a fan of Rosenstein's In Whose Honor, an acclaimed documentary that takes a critical look at the practice of using American Indian mascots and nicknames in sports. And Rosenstein, Boerger says, had a "strong sense of how special Amasong was and the transformations that occurred in the members lives and the community."
"I was thrilled because I knew that the experiment was about to end for me," Boerger says. "I really wanted to have a very special record of it, and I knew he would make something very beautiful."
The group voted unanimously to let Rosenstein document their time together. "I think that most of them felt that to have a record of our time together was going to be really precious," Boerger says. She adds that most of the women report really positive change in their lives from being members of the group.
"In the first place," she says, "the level of musical quality for which I strove, and which we attained, revealed to the singers that they were capable of creating beautiful things that they didn't necessarily know they were able to create."
"By opening the chorus to participation to women of sexualities - and seeing the loving solidarity across these differences and other differences-gave me a measure of health that is inestimable," she says.
Amasong was screened in Urbana in November of 2003, and has been touring film festivals worldwide and in San Francisco, Washington DC, Dallas, and Nashville.Boerger hopes that the national broadcast on June 15th will bring attentionto the chorus, which continues in Champaign-Urbana and has just named Boerger’s third successor.
Boerger currently teaches As a proud member of the Barnard community, she hopes especially that members of the community will be able to see the film.
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