Gibbs High School's choir has grown to a multicultural ensemble of 60. It performs this week at the Palladium Theater.
By DONNA WINCHESTER
Published February 25, 2004
ST. PETERSBURG - The first time Mark Bratanov heard a live gospel performance, he knew he wanted to do more than listen.
No stranger to vocal performance, Bratanov had been a member of the all-county and all-state middle school choruses. He had sung in the choir at Garden Christian Presbyterian Church and had seen gospel music performed on television.
But the 16-year-old, who is white, had never experienced live gospel music until he attended a Black History Month event last February at Gibbs High School. There, he was exposed to a 60-member ensemble composed of students from the school's traditional program as well as the Pinellas County Center for the Arts, Gibbs' magnet component.
"I heard them sing and I said, "I'm going to do that,"' Bratanov said Saturday during a rehearsal break for this year's show. Rather than watching from the audience, he will be on stage at the Palladium Theater Thursday and Friday nights when the choir performs Orbita'ar: the Story of Josette.
Bratanov, a sophomore in Gibbs' Business Economics Technology Academy, auditioned for the choir in August. He has spent nearly every Monday afternoon since then exploring the joys of a musical form that has its roots deep in the black church.
His opportunity came courtesy of PCCA guidance counselor Cody Clark, who created the gospel choir four years ago as an outreach for black students. Clark, who is black, grew up singing gospel music in a church in his native Titusville. He thought the music, with its link to blues, rhythm and blues, and hip-hop, would be the perfect vehicle to help black children connect to their musical heritage.
He never dreamed that white students, such as Bratanov, or Hispanic and Asian students would be attracted to the gospel choir. Nor had he expected the choir's popularity to extend beyond the borders of the arts magnet.
"I started out testing the waters to see if the students would be interested in gospel choir," said Clark, 46. "Now the choir is multicultural. That has been one of the wonderful surprises of it."
Much of the credit for the choir's success, Clark said, goes to former principal Barbara Shorter and current principal Herman "Doc" Allen, who have been extremely supportive. PCCA program director Ralph Nurmela has been instrumental in the choir's evolution as well, Clark added, encouraging voice and theater majors to participate.
But in the beginning, Clark's vision was limited to staging a Black History Month event in which students interested in gospel music would introduce their audience to the art form. With help from Gibbs' Black History Month coordinator, Sharion Thurman, he also hoped to teach a little black history.
The first year, he wrote a story based on abolitionist Harriet Tubman. The second year, his inspiration came from the 1963 bombing of a Birmingham, Ala., church that took the lives of four little girls. Last year, he fused the Old Testament story of David and Bathsheba with a story from Greek mythology.
Over the years, as the February event became more ambitious, the students decided to add more shows. They now present Christmas and Easter shows as well as a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. tribute. They travel countywide and recently performed at Perkins Elementary School and St. Petersburg College.
All of the shows feature spiritual music, but they are primarily academic exercises, Clark said.
"The choir is a performing group and not a worship group," he explained. "While we sing music that is highly emotional and is used in churches, there is no attempt to convert anyone. We concentrate on learning how to sing the music, why people sang it and how to understand the rhythms."
The February show continues to be the choir's main focus. This year, Clark elaborated on the Old Testament story of Job to show how suffering can erupt from ordinary circumstances. His lead character, Josette, is struck by lightning at a family picnic and has an out-of-body experience. The play would take about two minutes in real time, but Clark uses the entire second act to explore what Josette experiences in a luminous, other-worldly galaxy before she comes back into her body in the third act.
He expects that audience members will read different things into the play based on their particular experiences. Religious people may see Josette being called to heaven and communicating with Jesus. Others will see her as an extraterrestrial, conversing with the stars and the planets.
Underlying the story, Clark said, is the nature of the father-daughter relationship, a theme to which he has given much thought in his role as a guidance counselor. He hopes to make the point that fathers are important and that they need to be in their children's lives.
Despite the choir's universal popularity, singing gospel music presents different challenges to different students, Clark said.
Those trained in traditional theater, such as Glenn Grieves, have to learn to be patient with nontheater students who are unfamiliar with taking direction. Grieves, the show's assistant stage manager, also had to accept that he would be given words and music a half hour before performances.
"It's a very different environment," the 17-year-old said. "They actually write the show as they go. They have an idea, but no specifics."
For Bulgarian-born Boris Damianov, 18, the challenge has been learning to sing the music without first dissecting it, as he is expected to do in his other music classes.
"You don't sit down and learn the music," he said. "You just go with the flow."
The combination of camaraderie, academics and cultural sharing is what makes the gospel choir a success, Clark said. Still, students must be dedicated to keep their spots.
"You have to want to do this," he said. "It's a very different kind of experience. You have to want to go for the ride."
If you go
WHAT: Gibbs High School gospel choir presents Orbita'ar: the Story of Josette.
WHEN: 7 p.m. Thursday and Friday.
WHERE: Palladium Theater, 253 Fifth Ave. N.
HOW MUCH: A limited number of tickets will be on sale at the door for $6.
