'Gender' concert aims to upend stereotypes

One of the songs on the program for the "Gender UnChecked!" concert this weekend at the Ordway Center is about a boy whose parents won't let him have a doll.

"The boy in the song is 5 years old," said Anne Hodson, production manager for One Voice Mixed Chorus. "His parents don't feel it's appropriate for a boy to have a doll, and so the parents refuse to let him have a doll."

The song, "William's Doll," has a special resonance for Hodson. "I wanted to have a doll too," she said. "And my parents did not want me to have a doll, because I was born a boy and they felt that it's inappropriate for a little boy to have a doll."

The fluid boundaries of gender and gender identity, much in the news lately, served as the inspiration for "Gender UnChecked!"

One Voice has explored gender issues for years. Its "OUT in Our Schools" program works with student singers at local middle and high schools. Hodson said "Gender UnChecked!" was conceived in part from conversations with young singers.

"What's the first question we ask a person that's pregnant?" she asked. "'Are you having a boy, or having a girl?' It's the very first thing we do. And once we know that information, we begin developing an identity for that child around our own preconceived notions of what gender means.

"And some of that's going to get tipped on its side and some of it's going to be turned upside down in this concert."

The program includes pieces by Stephen Sondheim, Fanny Mendelssohn and Andrew Lloyd Weber. Woven throughout the concert are stories performed and read by singers and their young collaborators. One of them is 21-year-old Alex Renshaw, who will read poetry.

Renshaw looks male, with a young beard and a curly head of black hair. Renshaw doesn't feel male, though, and maintains this look to avoid unwanted attention:

"It's been like hiding — literally hiding. This is what I feel I have to do right now, to be safe with where I'm at."

Renshaw hopes someday soon to have the courage to embrace an identity that feels right.

One Voice Mixed Chorus bills itself as the nation's largest chorus of LGBT people and their allies, with more than 125 singers and an additional 50 volunteers.

The chorus formed in 1988 in response to the AIDS epidemic. Artistic director Jane Ramseyer Miller called the chorus "this really fun mix of people who are looking for community and looking for great music and love to sing, and that's who we are."