| The intersection of belief, identity, and performance enacted in the Metropolitan Community Church of Northern Virginia (MCC NOVA)---a lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgender, queer community of faith, provides an arena for ethnomusicological inquiry into ritual performance and identity construction. As a safe-haven for persons marginalized by mainstream religious traditions, MCC NOVA serves as an alternative to historically oppressive and suppressive worshipping environments where LBGTQ lifestyle is often considered antithetical to the goals of religiosity. It grounds ritual and musical practices in its core values: elastic theology, inclusiveness, diversity, community, member-ministers, and love and acceptance. These core values are the basis of a variety of performative events which allow for the self-fashioning of identity and spiritual exploration on both an individual and corporate level. Affected by a variety of "cradle traditions", this LBGTQ group draws on a complex assortment of sacred musics and ritual practices which form a unique gender-religiosity as MCCers journey to describe and re-invent their collective self. MCC NOVA intensifies the experience of faith through its multi-gendered condition, alternative spiritualities, and idiosyncratic performance events by fashioning a Judeo-Christian-based LBGTQ spirituality in light of freedoms which allow for exploration beyond the boundaries of the Christian ordo.;This project deals with a series of unexplored important questions concerning the significance, process, problems, negotiations, and repercussions involved in performing a variety of hegemonic ritual musics and acts in light of MCC NOVA's emerging central core values. Analyses are a consideration of the behavioral aspects of conversion considered in light of the process of establishing a self-concept and its affects on socialization. The musical material is analyzed through a methodology which considers musical change as a consistent domain in the perceptions and performances of MCC NOVA rituals. Foremost is a consideration of the relationship between individual existenz and corporate identity and the role this relationship plays in understanding the commonality between continuity and discontinuity of performances in relationship with core values. The overall methodology of the research strives to interpret the multifaceted expressions of this community by understanding them through a series of analytical lenses. |
