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Raising Consciousness Through Storytelling

Olga Sneed Davis (Drama, Group 9)—educator, scholar and performer—began her lifelong study and love of language at a very early age. "Daddy was a storyteller; he loved telling stories and having me recite Omar Khayyam quatrains," she recalls. "When I was 6, he got the great works off the shelf. There were texts that he wanted me to know —that is, 'know' with artistic expression. He wanted me to understand literature and the way one can express the experience of life through language."

Olga Sneed Davis(Photos by Tom Story )

After attending high school in West Los Angeles, where she took part in plays and was a member of the speech and debate team, Davis enrolled in the Los Angeles Theater Academy for two years. Here she learned about classical training for the actor and became interested in pursuing drama study more intensely. Knowing the reputation of Juilliard—a name she heard throughout her youth, as her parents attended Wilberforce University in Ohio with Leontyne Price (who later became one of Juilliard's most celebrated graduates)—it seemed like a natural next step to audition for the School. "I wanted to go to the best, and as I researched drama schools, it seemed that Juilliard was it."

At Juilliard, Davis found mentors among the drama faculty. "Edith Skinner taught me the diamond of good speech. Liz Smith stressed discipline in the craft of speaking well. John Houseman directed me in a bicentennial production of John Brown's Body, and showed me how to make a difference with the characters I played. Juilliard provided me with an approach to my artistry and creativity, as well as a disciplined way to approach life—how to make meaning of my life's journey," she observes. "Juilliard was an institutional place that was instrumental in teaching me how to embody stories. It was the apogee of creating and telling stories—not just to entertain, but to raise consciousness."

Her years after Juilliard included a recurring role on General Hospital, voiceovers for Nebraska's Public Radio and Educational Television, and performances as Ruby in August Wilson's King Hedley II with Arizona's Black Theater Troupe, using her talent and technique to approach this new phase of her life.

"Throughout my artistic and academic career, I have attempted to raise consciousness about issues pertaining to the marginalized and oppressed people of our society," she explains. "I believe in critical thinking and making a difference in the lives of young people. I was moved by people like Paul Robeson, Ruby Dee, and Ossie Davis, who inspired me and other artists to take a stand. It seemed to me that through my artistry and scholarship, a critical voice would emerge to reflect issues of those who are voiceless and oppressed."

With those goals in mind, Davis earned her Ph.D. at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her research focused on 19th-century slave narratives. As a Rockefeller fellow, she researched the impact of black female slave narratives on the antebellum abolitionist movement. "I wanted to know how black women strategized to overcome an oppressive system of domination inherent during slavery."

Next, she chose to chronicle the stories of survivors of the 1921 Tulsa race riot, one of the most horrific and heinous crimes of racial unrest in the history of the United States. "What grabbed me was their indelible spirit—that they remembered and continued to live on to tell the story of the riot. Their memory memorialized a community bent on creating an American economic infrastructure that was to become the beginning of the black middle class," Davis says.

Her research has led her to grapple with the issues of division and the questions of what it means to be an African-American, a woman, and a performer. She raises these questions not just for herself, but also for (and with) her students at Arizona State University, where she is associate professor of performance studies and women's studies in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication. "We need to learn as performers how to raise the consciousness of our audiences and to encourage them to make a difference. Performance is a tool, a vehicle to raise questions of race, gender, class, identity, the body, and everyday lived-experience. How do we understand difference and embrace diversity? The performance classroom should be one of critical thought and dialogue. We need to find ways that performance creates conversations, opens our eyes and provides a critical lens to make meaning of our world."

In her work, Olga Sneed Davis comes full circle to lessons she learned at Juilliard. "My most challenging times at Juilliard gave me the strength to say, 'You can go on; get up and keep working on your craft—dare to challenge yourself! Commit every bit of energy to the here-and-now—it will be breathtaking and rewarding!'" Her life's journey is just that.

—Jamée Ard

Alumni Relations

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