Drawing on the collective talents of Haitian-American composer Daniel Bernard Roumain, Haitian-American librettist Marc Bamuthi Joseph and peerless director, choreographer and dramaturge Bill T. Jones, We Shall Not Be Moved tells the story of five North Philadelphia teen runaways and their confrontation with the local police, in a timely exploration of national identity, race, gender, personal responsibility, and the limits of the public education system. Rising from the enduring ashes of the Philadelphia police’s May 13, 1985 bombing of the MOVE compound in West Philadelphia, where the opera is set, the broadcast marks the 35^th anniversary of the tragic event.

Opera Philadelphia’s Digital Festival O is generously funded, in part, by the John S. & James L. Knight Foundation.

In a production that combines spoken word, contemporary dance, video projection, and classical, R&B, and jazz singing with a brooding, often joyful score, the creative team’s original story depicts five North Philadelphia teens on the run. Comprising a 15-year-old African-American girl and her self-selected “family” of four brothers – a black-identified white boy and three African-Americans, one of whom is transgender – their confrontation with a local police officer – herself a woman of color – raises timely questions of national identity (what is an American and what is America?), gender identity, the insidious nature of racism, police presence in minority neighborhoods and the violence that sometimes ensues, and the failure for some of the education system. Ultimately the work hinges on the notion of personal responsibility.

We Shall Not Be Moved grapples with its controversial themes through the tight lens of a single story: that of the five teenage runaways who style themselves the “Family Stand.” They seek refuge in a condemned house on the site of West Philadelphia’s former MOVE compound. Confronted there by Glenda, a Hispanic police officer, they draw comfort and even a degree of inspiration from the ghosts who haunt their new home, and come to consider their squatting not merely as self-preservation, but as an act of resistance.