"It was an out-of-body experience": How one Swedish choir transforms broken lives

Music can change people, and community can save people. These beliefs rang true in my powerful conversation with Janice Kavander, Cassandra Klatzkow, Linda Nápoles, and Doreen Ndagire - four former Tensta Gospel Choir members. As they started popping into the video call with big smiles and exuberant hellos, it became apparent that these women were deeply connected by their time in the choir - even years later.

Days before, I sat down and watched Kören - A film about Tensta Gospel Choir - the soon-to-premiere documentary about the hyped Stockholm-based choir and their 2018 tour to Chicago. The film director Amanda Pesikan also joined to share her perspective on why this story was the story.

Kören feels like an intimate front-row seat to the backstage life of the renowned choir. It is "behind closed doors" realness and rawness, opposite of performance. You see the commitment, the friendships, the laughter, the tears and the frustration. Ultimately, you see the coming together of beautiful, broken people, all seeking something more significant than their own challenged beliefs. I was moved by the vulnerability of the lens by which this film was captured.

I was curious how these well-known women in the Stockholm music scene found their way to the Tensta Gospel Choir, and how it inspired them in the long run. Kavander laughed, saying she was "literally dragged" to a rehearsal by her friend and fellow choir member Sabina Ddumba, while Klatzkow had studied soul and gospel music in Fryshuset and felt called to audition. Nápoles had seen a performance at Skeppsbron that sparked her interest, and Ndagire had grown up in a religious context and wanted to explore her faith and love for music further. The term "come as you are" in action, I thought. Community as it should be.

Pesikan described her initial interest in making this film as capturing "a unique group with a unique sound". She wanted to examine how and why this space could mean so much to so many people. "As a director, I am, of course, drawn to stories, and in this choir, there were a lot of individual ones. I was fascinated by the force that some people described as God and that some described as love - this force was important to me," she says.

Related: Reddit forums and heartbreak: The story behind Cy's pop debut

For obvious reasons, religious faith and identity were common elements in the film. You see the internal battle their choir director, Cedwin Sandanam, has with himself leading a group of people from different backgrounds, on opposite spiritual journeys, through gospel music: a historically Christian sound rooted in Black spirituality.

In the movie, Klatzkow says, "We're such different people with such different backgrounds. That we are so different helps create a feeling in the audience that a homogenous choir cannot. That's super important for me. I don't know how I survived before the choir. It's really powerful that choir music can make such an impact." During the interview, she adds, "I had no relationship to religion, but I always felt spiritual in some way. I joined because I wanted to sing, but singing ended up being the least important thing. It was about the community and finding a place of home. Musically I've always been full of expression, but this was a place where you could mean everything, and in a group, it was an out-of-body experience."

For Kavander, Tensta "exceeded her expectations and musical expressions." She recalls, "I was in a place where I was navigating through what I believed and felt - there were moments that I experienced energy that was not from this world. Tensta became my way to reconnect with my faith and belief. It was about the love and force that brings, and I am still on that journey."

Ndagire adds, "It brought up many feelings watching the movie. Everybody signed up under the idea of love and respect, and that's what I believe God is. I left the church but stayed in the choir to nurture the part of the religion that practiced kindness. I, too, was exploring something bigger than myself."

The open-mindedness of believing in possibility over certainty was the common denominator of this choir. Speaking to the Swedish norms and culture, Pesikan adds, "I think it's interesting that we are so afraid of faith in Sweden. It's actually 'uncool' to say the word Christianity. Why is that? I was interested in prejudices - my own and others." Co-existence in a secular country was the root of this film.

The red thread between their personal stories was the longing for togetherness - the most human need. Nápoles says, "Before the choir, I sang what I saw on TV, but after the choir, I learned how to really sing - with meaning and with a purpose to deliver a message of love. To touch people."

Related: “I count in Swedish; I write, speak, and dream in English; and I feel in Farsi”: Snoh Aalegra on only feeling at home on stage

As reminiscence does best, it reminds us of what we've learned and kept with us. As the call came to an emotional end, they spoke about the impact ensta Gospel Choir had on their lives. How it taught them to “connect beyond the superficial,” take more risks, and the most important reminder: to bring something other than “the worldly essence: yourself and your ego” into something.

Ndagire closes by saying, consider this film, the story told and the gospel music “a parable for the times that we’re living in, in exploring identity and leadership - but really, exploring the Swedish idea of fitting into a box.”

Kören hits Swedish theatres on November 26.