Street roots., August 17, 2018, Page 7, Image 7

Street Roots • Aug. 17-23, 2018
News
Page 7
Shining brightest
in the dark
A n unusual concert will be staged in
Portland’s notorious Shanghai Tunnels
BY HELEN HILL
STAFF WRITER
A |
\ h e present is reaching back to heal the
past deep in the subterranean
-L passageways beneath Portland’s Old
Town.
Across from the Street Roots office on
Davis Street is one entrance to the Shanghai
Tunnels. Regular tours lead visitors down dank
passageways past barred cells, opium dens
with bunk beds and discarded boots, allegedly
from the men who were kidnapped and held
here. The tunnels were
| H H I 11 I
connected to the nearby
waterfront where
What; Songs from the Shadows
seagoing ships required
men for slave labor and
When: 7-10 p.m., Aug. 24,25
women for the sex trade.
Where: Shanghai Tunnels/Portland
From the 1850s until
Underground Tour, 213 NW Couch
the 1940s, vice and
S t Portland, OR 97209
corruption flourished
Tickets: $25 at Eventbrite.com
beneath the City of
Roses.
“Denial is part of the
history,” said Michael
Jones, president of the Cascade Geographic
Society. Jones has been the lead excavator and
collector of oral histories and artifacts from
the tunnels for decades.
Soon those dark halls will have a new
audience to remember and reflect. An unusual
concert aptly named “Songs from the
Shadows” will be performed at 7 p.m. on Aug.
24 and 25 inside these infamous tunnels at
213 NW Couch St. Tickets are $25 and
available at Eventbrite.com.
Women who have experienced sexual
violence have been meeting with local singer
songwriters who themselves have experienced
sexual violence. Together they have written a
concert of original songs to be performed .
beneath the streets of Old Town, beside the
doors to the elevator shaft where one enslaved
woman, a young Native American named Nina,
was thrown to her death when she told
missionaries the identity of her kidnappers.
“This is the first organized concert in the
history of the tunnels,” said Crystal Akins,
IF YOU 60
BUSING, fro m p a g e 4
person planning to host the ticket recipient
“They also learned to collect additional ways to
reach participants for the follow-ups,” he said in
an email.
While Transitions Projects, which facilitates
ticket distribution, attempts to make contact with
each recipient three months after the ticket has
been used, the county does not know how many
Ticket Home participants are still homeless.
“Overall, 323 households used the program
last fiscal year, and 72 percent of contacted
clients were still stably housed, Theriault said.
But, he added, there are close to 20 other
social service providers, in addition to churches
and private groups, in Portland, that offer clients
rent assistance that could potentially be used for
project organizer. “It is intended to bring
awareness to human trafficking and to women
who have been sexually and violently
exploited.
“I believe the light shines brightest in the
darkest places,” Akins said. “These tunnels are
dark places, and there is a dark, ongoing story
of sexual exploitation in our city. I chose
songwriters who have themselves experienced
sexual .frauma. I was molested as a young girl
and thi^is how I get through, by expressing.
Once we start talking to each other and
sharing, the shame gets lifted.”
Marchell “Shelly” Hines will be singing her
song in the tunnels along with her songwriter
collaborator, musical therapist Emilie Wright.
Hines was homeless for four years following a
bicycle accident that left her unable to work.
“After 25 years of being hit, I won’t let
anyone hit me now. I never thought I had
choices, but now I do,” said Hines.
“Shelly had such a clear idea in her head
already. We clicked right away. She came in
and sat down before me and we started
singing. We both got chills,” said Wright
Josephine Woolington, one of the
collaborating musicians, covered sexual
trauma and sex-related sports scandals for The
Register Guard newspaper in Eugene.
“I have a passion to share stories of
survivors. This is an ideal musical situation
because it raises funds for women in poverty
travel.
“Some programs don’t check first before
arranging someone’s travel, and many don’t do
any follow-ups when they do help someone to
another community,” he said.
The county doesn’t track the number of Ticket
Home participants that eventually make their way
back to Portland, but anecdotaly, said Theriault,
his office hears about very few people who try to
use tibe program more than once.
“It’s safe to make clear to constituents that
we’re tracking where folks are going, and have
been since day one, and that we’re just not seeing
our program contributing to an influx of folks on
the streets in other communities,” said Theriault.
emily@streetroots.org
greenwrites@twitter. com
who have a story to tell,” she said.
“Things happen and I can’t breathe, the
disrespect and random harassment, the name
calling,” said Tierrah Gulley, an African-
American transgender woman who was
interviewed for the project. “What’s going on
in my life, I don’t want it to affect anyone
else.”
Featured musicians and songwriters include
Josephine Antoinette, Joaquin Lopez, Megan t
McGeorge, Kina Lyn Muir, Desmond Spann,
Vince Meneses, Emilie Wright, Sarah Lopez,
Ashley Lowery, Crystal Akins and Amy
Vanacore as Corazon de Lobo.
z A piano will be moved underground through
the Shanghai Tunnel Museum by Piano Push
Play, an outreach project dedicated to rescuing
pianos and putting them in places for everyone
to enjoy.
Original folk-rock melodies composed of
voice, piano and guitar will range from
celebratory and empowering to raw and deeply
personal.
All profits will benefit Rahab’s Sisters, a
nonprofit that offers radical hospitality to
women marginalized by houselessness,
poverty, sex work, violence and substance use.
“It won’t be what people think. These songs
are resilient, powerful and beautiful, like the
women who wrote them,” Akins said. “We are
missing out if we don’t have these stories in
our hearts.”
Left to right: Kina
Lyn Muir,
Josephine
Woolington,
Tierrah Gulley,
Marchell Hines,
Emilie Wright and
Crystal Akins, who
will be presenting
the Songs from the
Shadows, Aug. 24
and 25.
P H O T O B Y H E L E N H IL L
A Bolt Bus heads
out from the
Greyhound Station
in downtown
Portland.
PHO TO BY EMILY
GREEN