OTR with Indigo De Souza

Katharine Wright. Courtesy of Wright Brothers Aeroplane Company

Lily D’Amato

Arts & Culture Editor

In Her Own Wright, the new podcast hosted by award-winning author Harry Haskell, explores the extraordinary life of Katharine Wright, Oberlin Class of 1898. Broadcast on 91.3 WYSO, the public radio station in Yellow Springs, Ohio, the show uncovers Wright’s invaluable contributions to society as a New Woman of the early 20th century. Her legacy has long been overshadowed by the triumphs of her older brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright, the fathers of powered flight.

In each of the podcast’s three episodes, various scholars, historians, and family members offer illuminating insights into the life and times of the “Wright Sister,” casting her as an indispensable member of the Wright family and an invaluable force in the history of aviation. Though her story is often left unsung, her dauntless dedication to her brothers served as an essential factor in their heroic first flight. Dramatic readings of her letters are interspersed amidst captivating tales of her childhood, time at Oberlin, and her late-life romance with Kansas City journalist Henry J. Haskell, Class of 1896, whom she met at the College in the mid-1890s.

For the podcast’s host, who is Katharine Wright’s step-grandson, the story is especially personal. While most people are familiar with the Wright brothers and the Wrights’ impact on Ohio, very few know of Katharine’s.

“Katharine has always been part of that story, but usually very much in the background,” Haskell said. “I think that began to change around the time my mother made available for public inspection the letters that Katharine wrote to my grandfather when they were effectively courting before their marriage in 1926. They revealed a side of Katharine that hadn’t been fully appreciated before, particularly with the new interest in women’s history and the new appreciation of women’s contributions to what had formerly been considered male domains. And, of course, aviation is a very prime example of that.”

When Katharine arrived at Oberlin in 1893, the College was one of very few co-educational institutions in the United States. Following the death of her mother in 1889, 15-year-old Katharine took control of the household and learned to move freely in a male-dominated landscape. At Oberlin, she again found herself surrounded by men; She studied Classics and gained confidence in her leadership capabilities, intellect, and worth. According to Judith Hallet, professor emerita of Classics at the University of Maryland, Katharine’s experience as a female classicist in Oberlin’s co-educational environment was rare and an essential asset to her future endeavors and travels.

“This co-education, male- and female- integrated world in which she moved was very different from what one would have found with most educated women,” Hallet said. “At that time, in the field of classics, women went to all-female secondary schools and then went on to all-female colleges. Some went to all-female graduate school, but it was very rare for women to get their PhDs at all. I would underscore that because she thrived in this co-educational environment, she was much better equipped to deal with the world of aviation and the world of her brothers. She never felt monopolized or controlled by men.”

Through his research, Haskell found that Oberlin became Katharine’s safe haven. In the 1920s, decades after her graduation, she became the second woman to serve as a trustee of the College.

“Oberlin was, for Katharine, the foundation of her life,” Haskell said. “It reinforced an existing faith in progressiveness. She referred to Oberlin constantly for the rest of her life as a bedrock of values. By the time she returned to the College as trustee in the 1920s, she was a world celebrity. Wilbur and Orville had invented the airplane and they had conquered Europe with her help as their ambassador to the world. She had made a real name and a profile for herself.”

When Katharine began teaching Latin and history at Steele High School in Dayton, Ohio, her brothers ventured to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. In 1903, after four years of experimentation, they became the first people to successfully man an airplane flight. Katharine taught until 1908, when a broken propeller sent one of her brother’s airplanes flying out of control. The crash killed the passenger and seriously injured Orville, who suffered broken ribs and a broken leg. Katharine immediately went to his bedside at an army hospital in Virginia and never returned to teaching.

In 1909, after Orville recovered, Katharine traveled to Europe with him and Wilbur, quickly becoming a social marvel in comparison to her notoriously shy

See In Her Own Wright, page 13

Student-Led Art Collective Rind Debuts Its First Gallery Show

Jocelyn Blockinger

Staff Writer

Over Winter Term, Rind, a new student-run, community-based art collective, held its first show. Hoping to revitalize a community of artists on-campus, the event offered participants an exciting opportunity to connect with fellow artists and showcase their own work in an informal, intimate setting.

Rind is the brainchild of College fourth-year Milo Hume, who hopes the collective will achieve a future as a leaderless community. Hume was originally inspired by Los Angeles-based nun Corita Kent, who opened the doors of an abandoned warehouse to local artists in search of a community where they could connect while sharing their work.

Since his first year at Oberlin, Hume believes he has seen a shift in the College’s priorities; where the College used to highlight the student body’s thriving arts community, he believes it now emphasizes — both on social media and financially — the Athletics program.

“I started thinking about how we don’t really have an artist community here at Oberlin anymore,” Hume said. “Since COVID, they’ve all kind of been deflated.”

College Fourth-year artist Anna Scott, who showcased their work at Rind’s first event, shared that Rind — which was hosted in Hume’s on-campus house — was able to provide a casual and fun space for artists to appreciate each other’s work.

“I think Rind has the potential to be super special since it is definitely a more intimate approach to sharing and talking about work,” Scott said. “It’s kind of like a traditional gallery show and a dance party, artists showcasing their musical or performance-related talents in alternative spaces.”

While Rind is leaderless, Hume and Scott offered similar visions for the collective. Both artists emphasized the importance of creating a welcoming environment where artists and observers alike can be themselves.

“I would love for it to be an ever-evolving, ever-present organization at Oberlin that just makes itself available to students,” Hume said.

Since many of the artists who displayed work in the first Rind show are graduating this spring, Hume wants to get younger students involved. In doing so, he hopes to establish Rind as a campus mainstay. Hume wants shows to become regular social events.

“We want everyone to come,” Hume said. “I would Photo by Katie Kunka, Production Manager love for a [first-year] to say, ‘Oh I heard there’s a Rind show on North Cedar tonight. Let’s stop by,’ — that kind of thing.”

Rind hopes to expand its bandwidth to include students who are not necessarily enrolled in Studio Art courses at the College. Hume and Scott expressed interest in involving everyone from student chefs to performance artists to DJs, a reflection of Rind’s goal to provide a space for creatives of all kinds.

In Her Own Wright Podcast Follows the Triumphs of Katharine Wright, Oberlin Class of 1898

Continued from page 11 brothers. According to Richard Maurer, author of The Wright Sister: Katharine Wright and Her Famous Brothers, Katharine’s outgoing, spirited personality tremendously benefitted the Wright brother’s flight pursuits.

“After they became famous, particularly after they’ve gone to Europe to introduce their flying machine, they get much more attention than they had in the United States,” Maurer said in the second installment of In Her Own Wright. “They become known not just as the ‘Wright brothers’ but as the ‘Wright brothers and the Wright sister.’ The three of them were thought of as a team. In France, there was speculation in the press that Katharine may have done the calculations for the machine or done some of the technical work.”

While they were overseas, Katharine often represented her brothers in public, speaking to foreign dignitaries like Alfonso XIII, the King of Spain, and Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia. French newspapers became fascinated by her charm and wit; in many ways she came to signify a more human side of the Wright brothers. When the siblings returned to the United States, they were international celebrities. They became lionized as the pioneers of aviation, and although there was still an impression that Katharine played a significant role in the construction of the airplane, she denied these rumors.

In the years following Wilbur’s death in 1912 and the selling of the Wright Company in 1915, Orville became increasingly possessive of Katharine. In 1926, when Katharine wed Haskell on Oberlin College grounds, Orville refused to attend the wedding. The last episode of In Her Own Wright, titled “The Hazards of Love,” explores the dissolution of their relationship. Although he stalwartly refused to contact her when he discovered she had contracted pneumonia, he was at her bedside when she died in 1929.

In 1931, Henry J. Haskell gifted the Katharine Wright Haskell fountain to the Allen Memorial Art Museum, which still stands outside the museum today. The younger Haskell, who has spent the past ten years poring over his grandparents’ letters, visits the monument often. Still, he feels the Haskell-Wright legacy is lost on some of the College’s newer students.

“All these people walk by every day, and they say ‘Katharine Wright Haskell? Is she a Wright? Is she a Haskell? What’s her story?” Haskell said. “I don’t know if anybody ever looks at that anymore. But it struck me that if you look out from the Allen across Tappan Square you’ll see the Wright Physics Laboratory that Orville donated to the school. … Our family was able to fund the installation of a plaque. The podcast and the plaque, those were some first steps [toward reconnecting the Wright family and Oberlin].”

ON THE RECORD Indigo De Souza, Indie Songwriter

Wiley Smith

This Week Editor

Geri Mishra

North Carolina-based indie singer-songwriter Indigo De Souza will perform at the Cat in the Cream on Feb. 28 alongside student-band Jane Hobson and the Hobgoblins. Since 2018, De Souza has released two studio albums: I Love My Mom (2018) and Any Shape You Take (2021). Like many of the tracks on her sophomore record, the leading single “Hold U” explores queer joy in order to grapple with the nature of love in a year of isolation and virulent political instability.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

I am really drawn to your lyrics. You have this range of direct and earnest statements to the lyricism of prose poetry. What does your lyric writing process look like?

I don’t really have a super special-looking process. I mostly just write when I have something to say. It’s normally just a very natural process that is kind of mysterious to me, because I’m not thinking a lot when I’m doing it. I’m just following some kind of feeling and the words just string together.

I learned about songwriting mostly from this person that I dated for four years. He is just an incredible songwriter, and he showed me a lot of underground music that really inspired the style of writing that I use. I just try to be, like, very honest and open with my lyrics, too. And that just always feels right.

My lyrics sometimes come when I’m in a moment of extreme emotion, but I think usually it comes from a place of calm. It can’t happen when I’m in a heightened place and feel really hyperactive. It’s more like once I’ve settled into an emotion, when I feel kind of heavy and still, or reflecting on the emotion and thinking about how it impacted and changed me. That’s when I am able to say something about it.

Your mom designed your cover art, which is so incredibly special. How did that come about?

Well, she is a really incredible artist. She has hundreds of paintings, sculptures, and just random mediums of artwork that she’s made that nobody has ever seen because she is a manic creator. Like, she is constantly creating things because she needs to.

That’s something that I don’t think she will ever be able to give up. She’s always thinking about the next thing she wants to create. For example, before we left on tour, she gave my whole band these jumpsuits; that she sewed us. And she had made probably like 13 of these jumpsuits, she’s just been honing in this design. That’s just how she’s been my whole life. She’s always thinking of something, some kind of project or some kind of invention, then she starts making it and can’t stop for a little while. Then she starts on something else. She’s had multiple restaurants as well. She’s incredibly creative with food and really good at cooking. She is wildly active in making things in general and I wanted her to be seen for her artwork. I realized that the cover art was the perfect way for people to notice her artwork, because she doesn’t really put it out in any way. I guess my hope is that someday, some publications will want to do a piece on her and her artwork because of the number of album covers that she’s painted for us. She’s just finished the third album cover recently. I’m hoping to have her paint all of them.

Does the grocery store image on the album cover of Any Shape You Take have any significance?

Well, it didn’t. When I thought of it, I just thought of it. I’ve always just thought grocery stores were insane, and I’ve always felt really anxious in them, so I think that imagery just came to me naturally. We were in the process of getting ready to put out the album, then the pandemic happened. I remember being in a grocery store, and thinking that it was strange that grocery stores now looked the way that the cover had portrayed them. Like, in the moment when there was no toilet paper. I just remember, like, standing in that empty aisle thinking, “This looks just like the painting.”

Do you feel the soul of the I Love My Mom album is different from Any Shape You Take?

Yeah, for sure. I think that every album is very different or has a very different soul. I changed a lot as a person in between those two albums. I shifted out of a lot of pretty bad spaces into a lot of new and healthy spaces, and I felt stronger and clear-minded when I made the next album. It feels like I Love My Mom came from the most angsty, depressed state that I’ll probably ever be in my whole life. Because I think I am constantly learning how to be more and Indigo De Souza

more stable; I don’t really think I’ll be able to go backwards to that space. Any Shape You Take just felt like I was more grounded when I made it. I recorded another album recently and it was amazing how different it felt. Yeah, it’s just wild — the way that you change as a person really affects the way that you record.

If I were to show someone one song of yours, which would you want me to show them?

I would probably want to share “Real Pain.” I think it is a good example of the kind of emotion that I draw attention to. I don’t know, I just feel like that song is very representative of the kind of energy that I bring into recording. The idea for that song also felt very important. It felt very important to share that with the world, and I think that if someone heard that song as the only song they’ve ever heard from me, hopefully they would be interested in learning more.

“Real Pain” is the one with the crowdsourced screams, right? How did you get the idea for crowdsourcing that?

I have lots of ideas constantly. I remember that one popping into my head Courtesy of Charlie Boss because the song was about a collective idea of pain and how to move through pain by feeling it all. It was the middle of the pandemic, and I was kind of struck by the idea that there was a lot of collective pain happening at that time and that I could represent it by getting people to send voice bytes of themselves. I could hear it in my head, the cacophony of many people’s voices.

Okay, my final question: who are your favorite artists right now?

Really, my favorite artists are the bands I’m taking on tour. We’re taking our friends Horse Jumper of Love and Friendship with us. The singer of Friendship is Dan Wriggins, who also has a solo project, and he is, in my opinion, maybe the best songwriter I’ve ever heard. At least, of this time. His lyrics are absolutely nuts. Every time I hear them, I want to cry because I can’t believe that it came out of anyone and that they exist in the world. And it blows my mind that he doesn’t have more listeners than he does; he’s pretty under the radar right now. He just deserves so much more attention.

Contact improvisation is an abstract style of experimental dance that flourished at Oberlin in the 1970s.

Courtesy of Oberlin College Department of Dance

perience of touch, and not just physical touch — although that is part of it … but the degree to which we want to touch and be touched.”

Ann Cooper Albright, chair of the Dance department and project director for “Critical Mass: CI@50,” describes contact improv as an experiment with weight and a shared point of contact between two people.

“[There is a] moment of mutual weight interdependence,” Albright said. “That point of contact is inherently unstable. … So in order to survive the improvisation of that point of contact moving through space and across the body, you have to train in a way that incorporates martial arts skills, dance skills, [and] improvisational skills, as well as some aspects of meditative skills.”

She also noted that, along with being an art form, contact improv can be applied to our daily lives as well.

“It’s a form that for me is exciting to do, but I also think that it has kind of metaphysical implications about all kinds of ways of being in the world,” Albright said. “How do you sustain yourself when the world is falling apart? Well, you get used to disorientation and learn how to move with it. That’s an amazing skill.”

Although all forms of contact improv have some shared aspects of touch and partnering, there has never been any official requirements or definitions placed on the art form. Rather, the practitioners of the dance style around the world each have their own unique understanding of the style and how it is performed.

“It’s always geographically unique and also [unique to] who’s teaching it and whoever’s body it’s coming through,” Janovic said. “The flavor here [at Oberlin] is very fierce, and it’s very physical. It’s committed, and that’s upheld by being within an academic structure.”

Albright, who has been teaching contact improvisation at Oberlin for over 30 years, noted that Oberlin’s style of contact improv has also changed over time.

“When I got here in the ’90s, students were way more willing to throw themselves around,” she said. “They were much more interested in taking physical risks. I think students [today] are a little more fearful and a little more fragile in their bodies, so they have to be coaxed to come out of that a little bit.”

The year-long celebration of contact improv at Oberlin will draw practitioners from all over the world, sparking the transfer and sharing of ideas and practices. The festival will be comprised of a variety of different events throughout the year, some of which have already occurred or are ongoing.

Over Winter Term, as part of this celebration, Oberlin hosted Slovenian artist Jurij Konjar, who partnered with the Dance department to host a series of workshops teaching students the skills needed for contact improv and leading them to a final show in which the students re-enacted Paxton’s original contact improvisation concept, Magnesium.

College second-year Katy Masterman took part in the contact improvisation Winter Term project. Before the project, they didn’t know much about contact improvisation, but through Winter Term, they came to appreciate the form.

“Jurij was an excellent teacher, and everyone there was very supportive,” Masterman said.

They also noted that through their experience with contact improv, they have learned a lot about certain aspects of dance and this particular form.

“I think I have a better relationship with falling,” they said. “We did in class a lot of work in learning how to fall safely and different roles and techniques in how to do that. I feel like now I’m not so scared of it in a dance sense.”

Also part of the celebration is Collective Gestures, an exhibit in the AMAM’s Ripin Gallery that explores the history of experimental dance in Oberlin, focusing particularly on contact improv. The exhibit features art from Yoko Ono, Theresa Antonellis, John Cage, Robert Motherwell, and other artists, as well as historical photographs and audio and visual representations of contact improv. This exhibit will be on display from Jan. 18—July 17.

Additionally, on May 6, the Mary Church Terrell Main Library will premiere an exhibit detailing the life and work of Nancy Stark Smith, OC ’73, one of the first practitioners of contact improv who was vital in the spread of contact improv across the world. This exhibit will run through July 31.

“Critical Mass: CI@50” will culminate in a five-day festival in July which will include a variety of different workshops, performances, and writings, all with the aim to commemorate the roots of contact improv in Oberlin. Hoping to foster meaningful discussions on the intersections of activism and art, the festival will run July 7–11, and event registration will open on March 22.

Although there are specific skills needed for some parts of contact improv, Janovic maintains that anyone who wants to get involved in this dance style shouldn’t be scared away. The Dance department is hosting in-person contact improv sessions, or jams, every Sunday in the Warner Main Studio, and they host pre-jam crash courses in contact improv techniques for beginners.

“A jam space is always open for new and old and anyone interested,” Janovic said. “It’s not a closed container. We continue to welcome new people. Anyone curious [can] come throughout the semester, we always have jams Sunday from 4–6 [p.m.]. … If you want to be dancing, you can.”

Original Student Musical Olympus Celebrates Black Joy

Continued from page 10

Olympus is an innovative new musical that draws on hip-hop, rap, and Afrobeat influences to challenge preconceived understandings of Greek mythology. Courtesy of John Seyfried said. “I wanted to make them feel welcome, seen, and give them a family. The real show is the people on that stage and this family that we’ve created.”

Caris Gross, a College third-year who is part of the show’s ensemble, is excited about participating in a show that amplifies Black students and students of color on-campus.

“While Oberlin and its Theater department are progressive in many ways, I’ve been disappointed by the slow route to supporting and amplifying students of color, and Olympus is a massive celebration of us and our abilities,” Gross wrote in an email to the Review. “As a multiracial (half-Indian and half-white) student and artist, this production has allowed me to embrace my identities fully without feeling any need to erase a part of myself, and to feel 100 percent comfortable in our rehearsal room. It’s also beautiful to see the cast come together as a family in the face of many obstacles and support one another no matter what.” College third-year Fafa Nutor plays the character of Aphrodite and relished the opportunity to re-envision Ancient Greek myths.

“To play a character who does not have to exist in a world where anti-Blackness reigns is so freeing,” Nutor said. “It makes me imagine a world in which Black young people can grow up without that weight.”

The music, written by Amanfo, Max Addae, OC ’21, and double-degree fifth-year Mark Ligonde, is far from typical Broadway show tunes. The show’s soundtracks are infused with elements of gospel, hip-hop, rap, R&B, and Afrobeat.

“Olympus is all types of music from the Black experiences,” Amanfo said. “It’s creating music from our own lived experiences. I didn’t want to give basic show tunes because I don’t relate to that — that’s not me. Mark, Max, and I infused ourselves in this world to make music.” Amanfo is not new to creating musicals. In his second year he wrote, directed, choreographed, and starred in his original work Equilibrium through Oberlin Student Theater Association. Olympus, though, finds itself in a faculty-directed time slot because of its visionary concept and the immense dedication it received from the cast and crew. “We don’t usually have students work in the faculty-directed slot, but we really have not ever seen a group of students who have put this much time into developing a work,” Jackson-Smith said. “This work has a vast vision. I think the department really wanted to honor Cyril’s vision of work and it seemed bringing it into the bigger theater was the best thing to do.” Amanfo says he’s very proud of the work and the stage the musical is at right now, but he’s also eager to take it to the next level.

“I am absolutely thrilled with what we have right now; however, I’m hungry,” Amanfo said. “I have a goal and a dream, and that is to get this show on Broadway. Not because of the Broadway check, not because of the publicity, but because I want to tell this story to as many people as I possibly can.”