Jazz Parade for Democracy Interview with The Wonderground Singers' Craig Green (11/17/2025)

Dan Doernberg: It’s Monday, November 17, and I'm here with Craig Green, who is the co-director of the Wonderground [Ed.–Singers] group. And for people outside of Charlottesville or others who don't know about Wonderground, tell us a little bit about Wonderground; what it is you guys do, where you perform, what you perform.

Wonderground Singers performing at the "Jazz Parade for Democracy" (Photo by Rebecca George Photography, used with permission)

[0:23] Craig: Well, the Wonderground is a group of singing activists. “Wonderground” is actually a word that I made up, and it obviously plays on “underground”. And I often say it's a place where we ground our wonder. And one of the things we often say to people who are learning about the Wonderground is that we don't have the answers. We're trying to hold space for better questions, and the sense that answers are actually problematic, because even if you come up with an answer that's true in a certain moment or a certain context. If I cling to that answer, it has a short expiration date, so the answer that was perhaps right yesterday or another context doesn't serve the needs of today or this moment. So we're always trying to return to our questions to live the questions.

Wonder is also a beautiful word, because I think it is the intersection of other qualities of spirit or consciousness. You know, wondering is questioning, wondering is imagining, wondering is marveling. And so weaving all of those together is part of what the Wonderground does.

[1:24] So we do sing. We show up and have sung at a lot of demonstrations in Charlottesville since we started in the spring of 2025. And we also come together just to hold the questions together about, how do we want to show up? How do we want to reach out to our fellow citizens at this time of a lot of chaos, dismay; we're aware of all that's going on in the world, but we bring our wonder to bear and our songs to bear in that regard. So we've teamed up with other street theater groups before we were part of this Indivisible “Jazz Parade for Democracy”. The Uprise street theater group led us to becoming part of the jazz parade. Yeah.

Dan: Well, we were really happy you did. It worked out from our perspective, great. I'm curious how you and the other Wonderground Singers felt about the experience.

[2:12] Craig: Oh, we loved it for sure. And yeah, Emily Little ended up having a big role in the… I think it was kind of a passion play, what happened on the first. [Ed.—For] Emily and I and several other friends it was a bit of a Déjà vu for us, because we had been involved with Extinction Rebellion, the climate activism group that had a moment in 2019, and we did climate funerals on the [Ed.— Charlottesville] Downtown Mall that were fairly similar in the symbolic framing. We would walk down the Mall carrying a cardboard coffin and singing mournful songs on the way down the Mall, and then more joyful jazz parade type songs on the way back. But what was done on the first was far more developed, and the numbers of people were exponentially larger, but it was definitely a familiar feeling for us to be part of that event.

[2:59] When we spoke with Isabel and Nancy early on, this idea to speak to the gravitas of this moment we're in, with so much under threat by the current political regime, but also to have a playful quality and to be kind of surprising, and to not easily fit in the box of, “Oh, there's the protesters raising their signs again.”, it was more of a drama. And I think it really did draw people who just happened to be on the Mall when we came marching down…

Dan: Just the participants [Ed.— actors and musicians] in the parade was over 100; we figure about 750 people.

For just having started in the spring, you guys have been doing a lot of music (e.g., UVA, when President Ryan was fired, and a number of things); how did this gig compare to other things that you've done?

[3:48] Craig: In terms of a street theater demonstration, it was definitely the best planned… the integration John D'earth did that wonderful job with the jazz musicians. I knew of John, but I'd never really worked with him or gotten to know him, and that was definitely a real delight to work with him a little more closely, and he was eager. He came to one of our Wonderground meetings and helped us figure out how all the different creative elements would fit together.

Wonderground meeting with Nancy, Isabelle, John, and Susan attending (Photo by Isabelle McMahon, used with permission)

[4:11] Yeah, and we actually had a kind of a post-action meeting last week. And just in general, everyone who participated felt like it was really uplifting, a bit of a shot in the arm for the souls of people, and noticing both the gravitas of the initial walking down with Lady Liberty in shackles, and then the joy of the songs that were sung on the way back, and noticing all the smiling faces. People wanted to do it again… not do the same action again, but to show up on the Mall again and do some sort of musical creative expression. It definitely was a positive experience, pretty much for everybody.

[4:51] Dan: Yeah, I have not talked to anyone who didn't think it was really, really successful, really empowering, “let’s do it again”.

[7:21] Craig: This is actually an idea or a way of talking about what we do that I got from another group in the Pacific Northwest. This was a large community choir that had what they called a “SWAT” which was to Sing When Asked To. So the SWAT team was responding to different people who said, “We're going to do a demonstration for this cause or for this issue that's coming up, and would some people come?” And the idea was it wouldn't be the entire choir, but the people who had the availability and felt connected to the issue would show up and sing when asked to. And so that's become part of our Wonderground culture, we're ready to swat when needed.

Dan: Well, you were definitely needed; it was a huge contribution. I think you had told me you have something like 35-45 people that you can draw from. So on any given singing emergency, they're often 15 or 20 of you

Craig: Right.

Dan: And that is really impressive.

[5:45] Craig: Yeah. My partner Cleo and I have this other group we call Songtuary, and that's been going for five years. It's funny, because Songtuary meets on Sunday afternoons, the Wonderground meets Wednesday evenings , and it's a little bit like Songtuary is just about singing there in the space … Some people are part of both, but the people who really want to be activists have really found a home in the Wonderground. And it does feel like we are meeting a need in the community, for people who want to find a way of expressing a vision of a better world through music, and singing in particular.

[6:19] Dan: Could you share with people the rundown of the songs that you sang and just one sentence why that song was chosen?

Craig: Yeah. The first song we sang in the program was This May Be The Last Time, which is a song from the Civil Rights era. And it was repurposed. It was often sung when an organizing group was ending a day of planning or strategizing together. [Ed.—it was] actually an idea that had come up from an earlier action we did with the Uprise Street Theater where, instead of saying this may be the last time we ever sing together, which would be the verse you would sing in the original context, we saying, “This may be the last time we share a constitution…. This may be the last time we have a free election.” And I do feel like it perfectly fit the passion play and evokes that sense of the precariousness of this moment politically, which I've never felt, like our democracy was trembling at its foundations like it is today. So that song was sung just before Lady Liberty collapsed on the paving bricks.

[7:20] And then we sang This Little Light Of Mine is part of the liberating and re-enlivenment of Lady Liberty. And then the group moved up the Mall, and we had a few more songs at the fountain area. We sang a beautiful song, Keep On Moving Forward by Pat Humphries, which is also kind of a widely sung song about keeping faith and never turning back in the face of difficulties or obstacles.

[7:50] And then the fourth song we sang was Woody Guthrie's This Land Is Your Land. And for me, that was probably the most joyful. Of course, that song is pretty widely known. And the whole 700 people who were present started singing it, and then the brass band picked it up, and as we ran out of verses, they kept playing it, and the group started marching further down the Mall, back to the [Ed. —Ting] Pavilion, with that song being the theme song as we were all marching back up the Mall. I didn't know it was gonna go off that big. I knew it was gonna be a surefire [Ed.—way to] get people to sing with us, but, the way that it turned into the band giving a wonderful New Orleans flavor to the song, and everyone walking the final half of the Mall down to the Pavilion was magic.

Dan: It was… it was a great day. And you guys contributed a ton. So thank you very much for appearing informally like this. And, yeah, we'll be doing more stuff with you guys, for sure.

Craig: Yeah, well thanks for checking in…

Dan: Ok, you take care of yourself, bye.

DMU Timestamp: December 17, 2025 02:57

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