Natalie Pohorski will debut a video for the song “Hearsay.”
Bassist Laurie Lang was devastated by the murder of her beloved niece.
The 29-year-old from northern Wisconsin was a victim of human trafficking. She had struggled mightily — with help from Lang, who lives in Madison, and other family members — to kick heroin addiction and escape her connection to the underworld of crime. But in 2016 her body was found in a ditch in California, and the family still doesn’t know who killed her.
After turning inward with grief, Lang turned outward, to art. “I spent about a month basically not really interacting with anybody after it happened,” says Lang. “And then I was thinking I wanted to do something creative to really affirm younger women. So I thought of these three younger women that I knew.” Now Lang, a longtime jazz player and music educator, is executive producer of an collaborative artistic endeavor called Facing Blue. She’s working with singer/songwriter Alma Cook, dancer/choreographer Rachael Peterson and filmmaker Natalie Pohorski on an event designed to create awareness about the issue of human trafficking.
Hearsay — Facing Blue’s inaugural event on Feb. 17 at the Memorial Union’s Fredric March Play Circle — features music (including a jazz set where Lang will play bass), dance and a conceptual video based on Cook’s song “Hearsay.” There will be shows at 6 p.m. and 8:30 p.m; the 6 p.m. show will include a post-show talk with representatives of some of the groups working on related issues: Slave Free Madison, Polaris, Project Respect, Briarpatch, Every Daughter, Kingdom Justice Summit and Zeteo Community.
“It’s a project that comes out of a story,” says Lang. “We’re not trying to say that we know everything about the subject. But we really just want to tell the story and maybe make a culture change about how we think about other people and ourselves.”
Cook says Lang has long been a mentor to her; they met in a church youth group when Cook was entering high school, and Lang helped Cook form a band and record a demo. “Laurie was one of the first people to tease the voice out of me,” says Cook. “I had been a songwriter, closeted, in middle school. We cut a demo as a group and I got to see some of my songs produced. That was really pivotal for me, to have someone give me the stage when I wouldn’t have taken it was really key.” Cook went on to attend music school at Columbia College in Chicago and is pursuing her dreams in Los Angeles.
The underlying theme of Hearsay, says Lang, is understanding the dehumanization that is at the root of human trafficking. “We want people to understand their own humanity, and also to look at people maybe different from themselves and see that they are also human,” says Lang. “Hopefully, that will make an adjustment in how they might treat other people and treat themselves.”
The show’s dark content may make some people wary of attending, but Lang and Cook both feel artists can help by illuminating complex issues and bringing stories to light. “I think sometimes we don’t take time to say it’s really terrible, and I’m going to just feel that for a moment,” says Lang.
For people worried about the show being a downer, Lang says the artists are hoping to “lament” while also creating a sense of hope and shared purpose. “It’s hard to have a show on human trafficking,” Lang admits, “Who wants to come to that? It’s going to be entertaining; it’s going to be beautiful, I hope; and painful.”
