VIXEN, VIRGIN, AND GODDESS: PERFORMANCE PRACTICE AND THE BAROQUE HEROINE

This dissertation comprises performance of three soprano roles in Baroque musical theater pieces, recorded on compact disc. These roles are "Poppea" in The Coronation of Poppea (1642) of Claudio Monteverdi (a filly-produced staging of the 1989 Alan Curtis critical edition in English translation, with the Maryland Opera Studio at the Kay Theater, Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, May 3 and 6, 2002; Ken Slowik, conductor); "Galatea" in Acis and Galatea (1718) of George Friederich Handel (a staged reading at Gildenhorn Recital Hall, Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, May 29,2003; Edward Maclary, conductor); and "Miecke" (Soprano Soloist) in Mer hahn en neue Oberkeet (Peasant Cantata), BWV 212 (1742) of Johann Sebastian Bach (a staged and costumed performance with the Washington Bach Consort at Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall, Alexandria, Virginia, February 2,2003; J. Reilly Lewis, conductor). In addition to performing these three roles, I was the stage director for the reading of Acis and Galatea. Close readings of the libretti, examination of contemporary guides to ornamentation, and research into production histories inform the improvisatory ornamentation found in these compact disc recordings.

THE INTERPLAY PERFORMANCE PRACTICE: PLAY AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN LATE CAPITALISM

Practitioners of the performance form “InterPlay” utilize dance, storytelling and song to build community and generate social change. I elucidate how this community of practitioners conceptualizes “social change.” I argue that the InterPlay social movement organizes around the application of play to performances of self in everyday life. I explore how the InterPlay non-profit corporation, Body Wisdom Inc., employs this technique to address racial justice in its organizational practices. I also examine how practitioners understand their use of this performance play in places of work, concluding that—even in these endeavors—they see social change as a process immanent to both individual people and the systems they create, not as the intervention of an autonomous external power. Ultimately, I argue that, within late capitalism, play should no longer be conceptualized as an activity separate from everyday sociality but as an immanent process of change constitutive of a socioaesthetic domain.