Cydi Yang (she/fluid). Photo courtesy to Uche Iroegbu.
cydi yang
CEDAR COMMISSIONS SPOTLIGHT INTERVIEWS
Over the next few weeks we’re featuring the six artists of the 2022-2023 Cedar Commissions (taking place Friday, February 17th, and Saturday, February 18th at The Cedar) in a series of interviews on our site. The Cedar Commissions is a flagship program for emerging Minnesotan composers and musicians made possible with a grant from the Jerome Foundation.
In 2022, the first year that The Cedar was open from January to December since 2019, these artists began crafting their commissions with a bit more normalcy on the horizon, but a lot of strangeness, newness, and darkness in the rearview. They’ve been composing, exploring new ideas, and assembling teams of musicians to bring their work to fruition on The Cedar’s stage later this month. Over the two nights of the Twelfth Annual Cedar Commissions, audience members will witness performances about the existential threat of petrol, the importance of protecting and embracing Somali youth, how to find meaning in the indescribable, how to listen to the song of the planet, an illustration of journeying gender transition, and a depiction of the soul-body reunion after trauma.
Our third spotlight interview in this year’s cohort is with Cydi Yang (she/fluid). Cydi is a spoken word artist, musician, and dancer. Her new work for the 2022-2023 Cedar Commissions Soul Call is a modern interpretation of the traditional Hmong hu plig ceremony. In this ceremony, a soul is called back to the body after experiences of darkness create a disconnect. Cydi spoke with Twin Cities music writer Youa Vang about pushing their artistic boundaries, exploring their expression as a Hmong person, and what the art of spoken word means to them.
“Expect to see, of course music, a bit of theatrics and dancing and visuals. I really wanted to bring my performance alive in all aspects, visually and audibly. This is a story of healing and connecting both my worlds. It’s my story of reclaiming parts of me through connecting with the Soul Calling ceremony in the Hmong culture.”
Youa Vang (she/her): What compelled you to apply for this commission and what story do you want to be telling?
Cydi Yang (she/fluid): I've done a lot of art stuff. I'm a creative person, in general. I do music, but I was also doing a lot of other stuff. I started out as a spoken word artist, and I did that throughout college in 2014. I felt something was missing, so I added music to my work, the instrumental piece. I think that's kind of what brought me to wanting to do more music in 2020.
I'm still pretty new [to] doing music. I wanted to see if I could gain experience and challenge myself in doing a big project. I really want to perform; I want to create. I saw the opportunity for the Cedar Commissions, and I know a few people who have done it before. They would encourage me. I think having encouragement and wanting to get more experience and challenge myself is why I applied. With the story piece, I think that was something that I was thinking, “What am I going to talk about,” or “What am I going to do?” My piece is called Soul Call. It's really a modern twist to the traditional Hmong hu plig ceremony, which is calling back a soul. They’re the people who may have gone lost or maybe they first themselves are sad, depressed, or maybe their soul left them during the traumatic incident that they experienced.
In a way, my parents have never done a hu plig in that sense for me. I felt lost for a really long time as a person in life, I was walking a path that wasn’t mine. I was walking with no direction and being in my body, but not feeling connected to my body because of what was being told of me and how to be. I struggled with what was expected of me because of my gender and not feeling that way. I felt very boxed in with this body and gender. I felt that I am that, but there’s also a lot more to me. It was always constantly feeling people were perceiving me in a certain way and me needing to be a certain way to make sense to people. There's been a lot of pieces of myself that I've lost.
My project is about calling all of those pieces back to me through this healing process, which is more of my modern take on it. It's processing my feelings through music and through expression. That’s where it came from, the place I'm using and being rooted in my cultural beliefs.
Youa: In this project, are you the shaman that's calling your spirit back to you?
Cydi: No, I'm not. I'm the person being called for. I actually recorded a Hmong elder to incorporate an original chant. I don't have any modern chant to it at all. It's my music, but I incorporated that idea. I'm trying to figure out how to incorporate some Hmong instruments. That's still a challenge, something I'm trying to figure out how to do. I do showcase an elder singing the chant, and I think I'm doing a choreographed dance. I did a simple beat to it, so that's also going to be a part of my set. In that dance piece, I'm the person who's lost. I have an actor playing the shaman.
Youa: Why are you so drawn to rap music?
Cydi: I grew up listening to a lot of hip hop. I never thought about music as a kid, but once I got to college … I feel rap is such a powerful type of music. When you perform it, you have so many different sides of you. When I listen, it's so raw and you can say what you want to say, how you feel, and just let it be. I'm a spoken word artist, too: it resonates with me. I'm a very lyrical music artist. I focus on the lyrics and messaging through the lyrics, so spoken word and rapping is why I like it — because I get to tell my story through word. I never thought I would do it. I had a partner back in college who encouraged me to rap in front of them, and they would have me do freestyling sessions with them.
Ever since I began doing that with that partner, I started to get more confident. I said, “Hey, maybe I could do this, because I was exposed to that.” That experience pushed me to do rap.
Youa: Do you ever get any pushback from traditional Hmong family members, asking, “Why are you doing this music and why not do more traditional music?”
Cydi: They don't get it. They say, “You're doing that kind of music? We don't really understand it, but that's cool.” English isn't their first language, so they don't really understand what I'm saying. They don't really care, I guess. I do sing, too, and sometimes I will sing Hmong songs.
Youa: That video that you made as a tribute to your grandmother. Was that your singing?
Cydi: Yes. That was me. The beat wasn’t mine, but the song and lyrics were mine.
Youa: Where are you at in your process today for this commission? Have you found it difficult to navigate your work and creative process?
Cydi: Everything is wrapping up. Everything is pretty much complete and just waiting to do tech rehearsals this week at the Cedar and finalizing small details. It definitely was rewarding and challenging but very happy that I'm here at this point. Doing a music project at this kind of capacity was very new to me, and wearing many hats including being the main artist was challenging, but I've learned a lot on how to better handle it in the future. The easiest part was writing the lyrics, because I know that is my strength, but everything else, I had to rely on others and also learn to work with other artists on how I wanted things to sound.
Youa: What have you enjoyed about it?
Cydi: Collaborating with all the talented artists. I’ve learned and grown so much from each of them. I’ve gained a lot musically and feel that I will be a better artist moving forward. The process itself has been very healing for me as this set of songs is about personal stories and about reclaiming myself.
Youa: Who are you working with on this project?
Cydi: I’ve collaborated with many people. I’ve worked with my parents who helped me with some of the hmong language, a Hmong elder, and talented musicians, beatmaker, a vocalist, a visual artist, an actor and dancer to make this show come to life.
Youa: How do you sum up being Hmong into this small window that you will be sharing on night two of the Cedar Commissions?
Cydi: I really wanted to incorporate the spiritual aspect of the traditional Hmong culture and find healing in my roots. The show itself is my own modern perspective of the Soul Calling ceremony, and using singing and rapping as a way to express and find healing as I tie it back to my roots as the core.
Youa: What is a common misconception of being a Hmong woman that you feel you want to shrug off or explain to others? Do you feel you need to?
Cydi: As a Hmong American queer fluid woman, I feel my perspective may be different, but I think we are what we want to be. There’s really no one way to be a Hmong woman. As Hmong people exist all over the world, we are very diverse! I find that I can be more of myself in mainstream society, but when it comes to existing in the Hmong culture, it feels a lot more boxed and limited, but I hope as we all continue to live our truths, those boxes will slowly open [and] expand for us to exist freely within our own community.
Youa: Do you feel you were successful in telling your story for this commission?
Cydi: Yes. I feel that very confident that I’ve said what I needed to through this commission.
Youa: What can we expect to see during your portion of the Cedar Commissions? What is the story arc of your session?
Cydi: Expect to see, of course music, a bit of theatrics and dancing and visuals. I really wanted to bring my performance alive in all aspects, visually and audibly. This is a story of healing and connecting both my worlds. It’s my story of reclaiming parts of me through connecting with the Soul Calling ceremony in the Hmong culture.
Catch Cydi Yang’s performance of Soul Call premiering live at The Cedar on Saturday, February 18th as part of the Twelfth Annual Cedar Commissions. Buy tickets here.