“This took 30 years to write,” Beverly Glenn-Copeland says, laughing, remembering how his track “Prince Caspian’s Dream” got here to him in small increments each 10 years beginning within the Nineteen Nineties.
A room of followers and artists sporting their red-carpet finest in a downtown L.A. loft held on Glenn (his most well-liked identify) and his artistic and life accomplice Elizabeth Glenn-Copeland’s each phrase and observe Saturday afternoon. Zooming in from their residence in Hamilton, Canada, they shared tales, songs and sacred objects: cherished pictures, a Christmas mouse, even a sacred pickle. “This is my alter ego,” Glenn stated, holding up an image of a turtle, “it takes me a very long time to get to any place in my life.”
In 2015, Glenn’s self-released 1986 album “Keyboard Fantasies” acquired crucial acclaim, world recognition and a brand new life when Ryota Masuko began importing tapes instantly from him to collectors in Japan, which was the topic of a 2019 documentary. Within the years since, Glenn’s standing has gone from native artist to internationally revered genius; this yr he’s collaborated with Sam Smith and Devendra Banhart, acquired a Lifetime Achievement Award for his queer activism, and an honorary doctorate from the College of Toronto. Whereas Glenn is comfortable that his work has a wider attain in the present day than it did in 1986, he was by no means ready round for anybody to seek out him. A Black trans elder who has refused to sacrifice himself or his artwork for the sake of enjoying by the principles, he has cultivated a various fan base that finds inspiration and hope in his music and life story. Glenn has at all times been an energetic and impressed visionary who sees his music and artwork linked to a private and non secular path. And nothing, not even dementia, can ever change that.
The Glenn-Copelands, accompanied by pianist Alex Samaras, carried out Saturday for Degree Floor Co.’s Re-Union: 10 12 months Anniversary Soirée. Degree Floor Co. is an artist collective and manufacturing firm targeted on telling empathetic and experimental tales, supporting numerous creatives, notably those that are queer, transgender and other people of colour. The group hopes to create an “eco-system and community” of artists, co-director Yétúndé Olágbajú stated. Degree Floor Co, together with artist Josephine Shetty of Pleasure Month Barbie, labored collectively to make the soiree an intentional occasion that embodied this sentiment; indigo dying napkins, sourcing artist-created desserts, drinks and meals, and reserving DJ Jihaari to remix Glenn’s catalog with dance music.
The celebration doubled as a filming location for “See You Tomorrow,” a brand new documentary by Degree Floor Collective co-founder and co-directors Samantha Curley and Chase Joynt, in regards to the couple’s journey navigating Glenn’s dementia prognosis. Within the movie they ponder complicated selections about his care and well-being whereas they embark on a mission to protect his creative legacy. It additionally follows them as they work to depart artistic choices for his or her family members, and for those forward.
After a profession spanning seven many years, this was Glenn’s first-ever L.A. live performance, and he acquired an extremely heat welcome. Initially scheduled to be in-person, Degree Floor Co. pivoted when the Glenn-Copelands realized that they might not journey to L.A. resulting from some current well being considerations. The occasion was an experimental afternoon of singing songs, sharing tales and poetry, and a few never-before-seen private and efficiency footage. Individuals danced, cried, and sang alongside, typically sustaining Glenn and Elizabeth’s notes, maintaining the bodily and non secular connection alive in L.A. within the few moments that digital tech difficulties lower it quick.
The group at Degree Floor Co.’s Re-Union: 10 12 months Anniversary Soirée in downtown L.A. watch Beverly Glenn-Copeland and his spouse Elizabeth carry out through Zoom. The couple had been initially scheduled to carry out in particular person however needed to swap to a digital efficiency resulting from Glenn’s well being considerations.
(Tina June Malek)
“What’s manifested through Glenn and Elizabeth performing virtually is an extraordinary opportunity for the film,” Joynt stated, describing the dual movie groups, one with Glenn and Elizabeth at their residence in Hamilton and one in L.A. “From an audience perspective, you’re going to be able to see that these rooms are vibrating and breathing and living for and through each other. If I do my job right, we will obliterate the Zoom screen.” Curley thinks of this as probably the most hopeful tasks she’s been part of that feels pressing and mild. “To be close to Glenn and Elizabeth, to be in their world of deep, queer, chosen family is such an honor and a privilege,” stated Curley.
Glenn and his spouse Elizabeth’s journey collectively began within the Nineteen Nineties when she sang backup for Glenn at profit reveals. Their queer love story heated up in 2007, when, after psychic visions within the dream realm and a infamous evening of livid dancing at a buddy’s wedding ceremony, the pair grew to become an inseparable group. Their love continues to unfold round collaborations, social justice advocacy, music and steadfast commitments for one another and their communities. Take for instance their work at Kidplayhouse Productions; a not-for-profit theater faculty the couple based and sustained for practically a decade on the Acadian Coast of Canada that offered therapeutic arts programming and training for teenagers and adults.
Earlier this yr, Glenn and Elizabeth introduced that the couple had been privately navigating a tough time whereas additionally experiencing an enormous artistic renewal. Glenn made his dementia prognosis public and declared that his 2024 tour can be his final. Nonetheless, he and Elizabeth are nonetheless engaged on new tasks together with music, youngsters’s programming with puppets, and a brand new e-book. After the success of Saturday’s occasion they might be contemplating doing extra hybrid performances.
“As humans and artists, there’s a lot to face, but we are determined to look at where the life is,” Elizabeth stated. “As parts of Glenn’s brain are dying, there are parts of him that are actually more alive than I have ever seen. There’s a great deal of beauty interwoven with a great deal of pain.” In serious about how they proceed in this chapter of their life, and the way humanity can overcome the daunting challenges of rising fascism, racism, transphobia and local weather catastrophe, she invokes a lesson from Los Angeles artist-activist (and nun) Corita Kent. Rule No. 4, which additionally occurs to be Degree Floor Co.’s present inspiration, calls for that college students and artists “consider everything an experiment.”
Shot of a vinyl copy of Beverly Glenn-Copeland’s 2023 album “The Ones Ahead” on the DJ sales space throughout Saturday’s efficiency.
(Tina June Malek)
Glenn’s work has lengthy reveled within the experimental. A groundbreaking album in folks, ambient and digital music, “Keyboard Fantasies” was composed with solely a Roland TR-707 drum machine, a Yamaha Dx7 keyboard, a (on the time) cutting-edge Atari Laptop, and Glenn’s unparalleled three-octave vocal vary. Optimism and care are themes you possibly can collect from his music with out figuring out any of his lyrics; “Keyboard Fantasies’” tender and cosmic melodies resonate like a dawning horizon, a message in a bottle retrieved 30 years later by each its recipients and its sender with codes and keys to assist us make sense of our ever-changing world. He and Elizabeth opened their set Saturday with the album’s “Let Us Dance,” transferring collectively as Samaras performed the instrumental outro on their residence piano.
Glenn additionally carried out an a capella model of “Deep River,” his syncopated low voice and expert falsetto transferring your entire room into snaps, whistles and screams. A non secular written within the nineteenth century, it’s embedded with coded details about the Underground Railroad, Glenn defined. “Jordan” was code for the Ohio River, and “Campground” was code for a group for Black individuals who had been profitable in escaping enslavement. He closed this track with a dynamic djembe beat, transferring by a number of time signatures.
Glenn and Elizabeth performed a string of sold-out reveals throughout fall in New York and Canada that Joynt and Curley filmed. Glenn received the 2024 Joyce Warshow Lifetime Achievement Award from SAGE, a company that focuses on advocacy and providers for LGBTQ+ elders. He and Elizabeth had been additionally part of Crimson Sizzling Org’s new album “Transa,” an enormous assortment of labor from a various group of over 100 musicians and artists together with (however not restricted to) Sade, Eileen Myles, Hunter Schafer, Clairo, Sam Smith and lots of others, celebrating trans and nonbinary music, and bringing consciousness and help to transgender rights.
“In this era of intense backlash against trans rights and freedoms, it felt like a profound and timely gift to collaborate with Sam Smith on a version of ‘Ever New’ for the next generation,” Glenn stated. The 2 fashioned an instantaneous connection within the studio. “There’s great love there,” Elizabeth remarked, remembering that “as they were hugging, Copeland said, I’m adopting you.” Smith stated that singing with Glenn was probably the most vital and delightful moments of their musical life. The backlash towards trans rights is palpable this week, as Chase Strangio makes historical past as the primary overtly transgender lawyer to argue earlier than the Supreme Courtroom, difficult Tennessee’s ban on transgender healthcare — which is anticipated to be upheld, regardless of the Biden administration calling it unconstitutional.
The brand new documentary challenges and complicates one-dimensional narratives about dementia. Engaged on this has helped each the filmmakers and the doc’s primary topics reimagine staying linked by music and artwork alongside among the inevitable adjustments of growing old. Saturday’s occasion additionally offered a chance to reimagine what supporting growing old artists, as followers and as producers, may appear like.
“See You Tomorrow” is an unfolding trans historical past, a dwelling portrait of a queer prolonged household, somewhat than a mirrored image on one thing that’s occurred prior to now. It bears “witness to an extraordinary love story as it is still unfolding,” Joynt says.
A crowd watches Beverly Glenn-Copeland and his spouse, Elizabeth, carry out just about from their residence in Hamilton, Canada
(Tina June Malek)
Queer and trans musicians are sometimes described in relation to time: usually, as being forward of their time, enjoying in unusual time, or dwelling artistic lives exterior of values and timelines marked as acceptable by guidelines of mainstream society. The ahead-of-their-time arc has typically plagued tales about so-called forgotten and avant-garde queer expertise from digital to classical genres. It’s typically queer artists and artists of colour like Glenn who encourage tradition, change genres and artistic fields, hardly ever benefiting financially from their visions and improvements, however nonetheless creating.
As the couple acquired a roaring ovation on the finish of their set on Saturday, Glenn held up a handwritten signal to the digital camera. The message, scrawled on a white sheet of paper, learn “I love you.” For a lot of followers, Glenn represents beloved elders of the queer group and his music can also be a love letter to youthful generations.
“Glenn’s life and legacy is so precious because we have so few trans elders,” Elizabeth says, noting the historic significance of sharing her husband’s story. “We want to leave this world in a way where we have touched lives, shaken people out of stupors, and woken people up. … In all the years, when nobody knew who the heck we were, we were traveling around from place to place; it’s always been about community.”
