 The opera we're doing is called Odyssey of a Dream. It follows Kayobi, who is a man from Nigeria. He decides to move to the United States in the hopes of pursuing a better life for his future family. And it follows him and his struggles as an immigrant in the United States. It's very useful to expand the idea of who an immigrant is and to see them more as a person. And I think this play does that very well in a fun way. If there are two keywords to describe the performance process, those would be diversity and collaboration. The students who are on stage, most of them have never performed with an orchestra before. Members of the orchestra, many of them had never performed African music before. This is a really unique experience for me, performing this specific play with the beautiful music that we're singing both in Yoruba and English. It's really special. And I'm really enjoying having such a different kind of class dynamic. Mahoyoka is such a liberal arts college and that all my classes combine so many different subjects. And this one is no exception. We study history. We study culture. We study music. It's very hard to imagine this happening anywhere else in the world, because you need the confidence of colleagues from all these different areas. And just from the music point of view, that it was even translating that into something that is understandable by musicians who are largely trained in Western classical music to make it sound authentic. Required a confidence of this amazing group of people who I think probably it's hard to find anywhere else, but in Mahoyoka. The student environment is something that demands classes like this. We want to learn more about these parts of the world that aren't being talked about in a traditional music history class. Students who aren't from West Africa or who haven't really learned much about West Africa really appreciate the culture a lot more and understand it more now that it's being put into practice. And they are not sick or us. You start singing. Taking bode's direction and this very fluid kind of learning experience to kind of just figure out what this should sound like and what it should be like. How do you take traditional African music and make it in an opera in a way that's traditionally European opera? This opera is a representation of one man's story that a lot of people can relate and connect to, especially in this time where we do have conversations around what is the status of immigration in the US right now? How are people experiencing this process? What effects does it have on their lives, on their families, and on their dreams? It makes me very proud that this could work. And it speaks to the kind of environment we have on this campus where everyone gives the other person the opportunity to display what is unique to them and to even share that uniqueness with other people. That makes me feel very, very proud to be a member of the Manholio community and the five college community at large.