Octavia's Brood: Riding the Ox Home

Octavia’s Brood: Riding the Ox Home was an evening-length dance concert performed October 15 and 16, 2015, at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center in partial fulfillment of the Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Maryland’s School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies. Inspired by the prophetic envisioning of Harriet Tubman and Octavia Butler, it explores race, otherness, ownership and story-telling from the perspective of Black women’s dancing bodies and histories. Borrowing its title from Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements, it utilizes visionary story-telling, where science fiction provides a foundation for imagining socially just worlds inhabited by richly diverse protagonists. This paper is a written account of the research by which I composed this immersive dance event, leaping back and forth through time, landing between antebellum Maryland of the mid-1800s and an unknown place at an unknown date of a foreseen future.

SPINNING NARRATIVES ACROSS POLITICAL DIVIDES: HARNESSING THE CULTURAL POWER OF A STORY WELL-TOLD

This dissertation explores how two American storytellers, considered by many in their to be exemplary in their craft, rely on narrative strategies to communicate to their audiences on divisive political topics in a way that both invokes feelings of pleasure and connection and transcends party identification and ideological divides. Anna Quindlen, through her political columns and op-eds, and Aaron Sorkin, through his television show The West Wing, have won over a politically diverse fan base in spite of the fact that their writing espouses liberal political viewpoints. By telling stories that entertain, first and foremost, Quindlen and Sorkin are able to have a material impact on their audiences on both dry and controversial topics, accomplishing that which 19th Century writer and activist Harriet Farley made her practice: writing in such a way to gain the access necessary to “do good by stealth.” This dissertation will argue that it is their skilled use of storytelling elements, which capitalize on the cultural relationship humans have with storytelling, that enables Quindlen and Sorkin to achieve this. The dissertation asks: How do stories shape the beliefs, perspectives, and cognitive functions of humans? How do stories construct culture and interact with cultural values? What is the media’s role in shaping society? What gives stories their power to unite as a medium? What is the significance of the experience of reading or hearing a well-told story, of how it feels? What are the effects of Quindlen’s and Sorkin’s writing on audience members and the political world at large? What is lost when a simplistic narrative structure is followed? Who is left out and what is overlooked? The literature that informs the answers to these questions will cross over and through several academic disciplines: American Studies, British Cultural Studies, Communication, Folklore, Journalism, Literature, Media Studies, Popular Culture, and Social Psychology. The chapters will also explore scholarship on the subjects of narratology and schema theory.

LUCIANO BERIO’S NATURALE: A STORY COMBINING FOLK MUSIC AND ART MUSIC

The study of a score by a serious performer is a fundamental step in the process of arriving at a knowledgeable and deeply informed approach to performing a piece of music. In order to obtain this knowledge numerous aspects of the score must be taken into consideration. It is the intent of this dissertation to gather and analyze the information concerning Naturale, a work written by Luciano Berio in 1985 for viola, percussion and recorded voice, based on Sicilian folk songs. All the aspects surrounding Naturale’s existence are taken into consideration in this study. First, it is important to reflect on Berio’s compositional style and traits, the manner in which he relates his works one to another, what he sees in folk music and his own personal desire to intertwine art music and folk music. For Berio Naturale is not an isolated venture into the realm of mixing folk music and his own avant-garde style; it is instead one of many works resulting from his long-standing relationship with folk music. Another essential aspect in this case is the study of Sicilian folk music itself, and the sources used by Berio to find the songs by which he was inspired. The work is examined section by section with figures showing both excerpts of Naturale as well as the original songs with their translations. An analysis containing harmonic, thematic and formal aspects of the score was developed in order to arrive at a better understanding of the structure and pacing of the piece. For this research the author went to Italy to conduct an interview with Maestro Aldo Bennici, the Sicilian violist for whom Naturale was composed. This interview helped in the discovery of two more songs used by Berio that have not to this point been identified in any other document. Bennici’s outstanding testimony portrayed the expressive character of this music and the evocative imagery behind this score. I hope to bring this knowledge to other performers, that they may fully understand and appreciate the unique beauty and power of Berio’s Naturale.