This collection aims to map a diversity of approaches to the artform by creating a 360° view on the circus. Three sections of the book, Aesthetics, Practice, Culture, approach aesthetic developments, issues of artistic practice, and the circus’ role within society. This book consists of a collection of articles from renowned circus researchers, junior researchers, and artists. It also provides the core statements and discussions of the conference UpSideDown—Circus and Space in a graphic recording format. Hence, it allows a clear entry into the field of circus research and emphasizes the diversity of approaches that are well balanced between theoretical and artistic point of views. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of circus studies, emerging disciples of circus and performance.

This anthology examines maternity in contemporary performance at the intersection of a wide range of topics from nationhood to mental health, queer parenting, embodied dramaturgy, cultural practice, and immigration. Across the breadth of these themes, we interrogate the cultural implications and politics of how we script, perform, receive, and define mothers, challenging many of the normalizing and patriarchal tropes associated with the mother-as-character. This book includes critical essays examining twenty-first century dramatic literature, first-hand ethnographic accounts of motherhood in practice, interviews, feminist manifestos, and artist reflections. In its deliberately curated variety, this collection seeks to resist homogeneity and offer instead a range of approaches to key questions: what versions of motherhood get staged, and why? And what do dramatic representations tell us about the role of mothers in our own fraught contemporary moment? This collection will be of great interest to those in academia who are teaching, researching, or studying in the fields of Theatre and Performance Studies, American Studies, and Feminist and Gender Studies.

LAND ART IN THE U.S.A.

A study of land art in America, featuring all of the well-known land artists from the 'golden age' of land art - the 1960s - to the present day.

This book explores all of the major American land, environmental and earthwork artists of the past 40 years, as well as European land artists working in North America. The book includes chapters on James Turrell and his vast volcano site Michael Heizer's Mid-West earthworks Robert Smithson and his giant spiral, entropic earthworks Robert Morris's environments and observatories Walter de Maria's Romantic Lightning Field and Earth Room Dennis Oppenheim's concentric snow circles Alice Aycock's mysterious underground mazes Mary Miss's sunken pools and pavilions Nancy Holt and her observation sculptures and the enigmatic floor sculptures of Carl Andre. And Europeans such as: Hans Haacke's Conceptual art Richard Long and his art of walking Andy Goldsworthy's natural, spontaneous, eco-friendly sculptures and Christo's wrapped buildings and islands.

EXTRACT FROM THE CHAPTER ON ROBERT SMITHSON

Robert Smithson is the key land artist, the premier artist in the world of land art. And he's been a big favourite with art critics since the early Seventies. Smithson was the chief mouthpiece of American earth/ site aesthetics, and is probably the most important artist among all land artists.

For Robert Smithson, Carl Andre, Walter de Maria, Michael Heizer, Dennis Oppenheim and Tony Smith were 'the more compelling artists today, concerned with 'Place' or 'Site''. Smithson was impressed by Tony Smith's vision of the mysterious aspects of a dark unfinished road and called Smith 'the agent of endlessness'. Smith's aesthetic became part of Smithson's view of art as a complete 'site', not simply an aesthetic of sculptural objects. Smithson was not inspired by ancient religious sculpture, by burial mounds, for example, so much as by decayed industrial sites. He visited some in the mid-1960s that were 'in some way disrupted or pulverized'. He said he was looking for a 'denaturalization rather than built up scenic beauty'.

Robert Smithson said he was concerned, like many land (and contemporary artists with the thing in itself, not its image, its effect, its critical significance: 'I am for an art that takes into account the direct effect of the elements as they exist from day to day apart from representation'. Smithson's theory of the 'non-site' was based on 'absence, a very ponderous, weighty absence'. Smithson proposed a theory of a dialectic between absence and presence, in which the 'non-site' and 'site' are both interacting. In the 'non-site' work, presence and absence are there simultaneously. 'The land or ground from the Site is placed in the art (Non-Site) rather than the art is placed on the ground. The Non-Site is a container within another container - the room'.

William Malpas has written books on Richard Long and land art, as well as three books on Andy Goldsworthy, including the forthcoming Andy Goldsworthy In America. Malpas's books on Richard Long and Andy Goldsworthy are the only full-length studies of these artists available.

Fully illustrated, with a newly revised text for this edition. Bibliography and notes. ISBN 9781861714060. 328 pages.

www.crmoon.com

Western Theatre in Global Contexts explores the junctures, tensions, and discoveries that occur when teaching Western theatrical practices or directing English-language plays in countries that do not share Western theatre histories or in which English is the non-dominant language. This edited volume examines pedagogical discoveries and teaching methods, how to produce specific plays and musicals, and how students who explore Western practices in non-Western places contribute to the art form. Offering on-the-ground perspectives of teaching and working outside of North American and Europe, the book analyzes the importance of paying attention to the local context when developing theatrical practice and education. It also explores how educators and artists who make deep connections in the local culture can facilitate ethical accessibility to Western models of performance for students, practitioners and audiences. Western Theatre in Global Contexts is an excellent resource for scholars, artists, and teachers that are working abroad or on intercultural projects in theatre, education and the arts.

Inside The Performance Workshop: A Sourcebook for Rasaboxes and Other Exercises is the first full-length volume dedicated to the history, theory, practice, and application of a suite of performer training exercises developed by Richard Schechner and elaborated by the editors and contributors. This work began in the 1960s with The Performance Group, and has continued to evolve. Rasaboxes - a featured set of exercises - is an interdisciplinary approach for training emotional expressivity through the use of breath, body, voice, movement, and sensation. It brings together: the concept of rasa from classical Indian performance theory and practice research on emotion from neuroscience and psychology experimental performance practices theories of ritual, play, and performance This book combines both practical 'how-to' guidance, and applications in diverse contexts including undergraduate and graduate actor training, television acting, K-12 education, devising, and drama therapy. The book serves as an introduction to the work as well as an essential resource for experienced practitioners.

Dance on the American Musical Theatre Stage: A History chronicles the development of dance, with an emphasis on musicals and the Broadway stage, in the United States from its colonial beginnings to performances of the present day. This book explores the fascinating tug-and-pull between the European classical, folk and social dance imports and America's indigenous dance forms as they met and collided on the popular musical theatre stage. The historical background influenced a specific musical theatre movement vocabulary and a unique choreographic approach that is recognizable today as Broadway style dancing. Throughout the book, a cultural context is woven into the history to reveal how the competing values within American culture, and its attempts as a nation to define and redefine itself, played out through developments in dance on the musical theatre stage. This book is central to the conversation on how dance influences and reflects society, and will be of interest to students and scholars of Musical Theatre, Theatre Studies, Dance and Cultural History.

Dancing Motherhood explores how unique factors about the dance profession impact mothers working in it. Ali Duffy introduces the book by laying a foundation of social and cultural histories and trends leading to the issues mothers in dance negotiate today. This study then reveals perspectives from mothers in dance working in areas such as performance choreography, dance education, writing, and advocacy though survey and interview data. Based on participant responses, recommendations for changes in policy, hiring, evaluation, and other work practices to better support working mothers in dance are outlined and discussed. Finally, essays from five working mothers in dance offers more intimate, personal stories and guidance geared to mothers, future mothers, and colleagues and supervisors of mothers in the dance field. By describing lived experiences and offering suggestions for improved working conditions and self-advocacy, this book initiates expanded discussion about women in dance and promotes change to positively impact dancing mothers, their employers, and the dance field.

This book examines the relations between Western religion, secularism, and modern theatre and performance. Sharon Aronson-Lehavi posits that the ongoing cultural power of religious texts, icons, and ideas on the one hand and the artistic freedom enabled by secularism and avant-garde experimentalism on the other, has led theatre artists throughout the twentieth century to create a uniquely modern theatrical hybrid - theatre performances that simultaneously re-inscribe and grapple with religion and religious performativity. The book compares this phenomenon with medieval forms of religious theatre and offers deep and original analyses of significant contemporary works ranging from plays and performances by August Strindberg, Hugo Ball (Dada), Jerzy Grotowski, and Hanoch Levin, to those created by Adrienne Kennedy, Rina Yerushalmi, Deb Margolin, Milo Rau, and Sarah Ruhl. The book analyses a new and original historiography of a uniquely modern theatrical phenomenon, a study that is of high importance considering the reemergence of religion in contemporary culture and politics.

The Routledge Companion to Performance Philosophy is a volume of especially commissioned critical essays, conversations, collaborative, creative and performative writing mapping the key contexts, debates, methods, discourses and practices in this developing field. Firstly, the collection offers new insights on the fundamental question of how thinking happens: where, when, how and by whom philosophy is performed. Secondly, it provides a plurality of new accounts of performance and performativity - as the production of ideas, bodies and knowledges - in the arts and beyond. Comprising texts written by international artists, philosophers and scholars from multiple disciplines, the essays engage with questions of how performance thinks and how thought is performed in a wide range of philosophies and performances, from the ancient to the contemporary. Concepts and practices from diverse geographical regions and cultural traditions are analysed to draw conclusions about how performance operates across art, philosophy and everyday life. The collection both contributes to and critiques the philosophy of music, dance, theatre and performance, exploring the idea of a philosophy from the arts. It is crucial reading material for those interested in the hierarchy of the relationship between philosophy and the arts, advancing debates on philosophical method, and the relation between Performance and Philosophy more broadly.

Unlimited action concerns the limits imposed upon art and life, and the means by which artists have exposed, refused, or otherwise reshaped the horizon of aesthetics and of the practice of art, by way of performance art. It examines the 'performance of extremity' as practices at the limits of the histories of performance and art, in performance art's most fertile and prescient decade, the 1970s. Dominic Johnson recounts and analyses game-changing performance events by six artists: Kerry Trengove, Ulay, Genesis P-Orridge, Anne Bean, the Kipper Kids, and Stephen Cripps. Through close encounters with these six artists and their works, and a broader contextual milieu of artists and works, Johnson articulates a counter-history of actions in a new narrative of performance art in the 1970s, to rethink and rediscover the history of contemporary art and performance. -- .

In Imaginary Performances in Shakespeare, visionary modernist theatre director Aureliu Manea analyses the theatrical possibilities of Shakespeare. Through nineteen Shakespeare plays, Manea sketches the intellectual parameters, the visual languages, and the emotional worlds of imagined stage interpretations of each; these nineteen short essays are appended by his essay 'Confessions,' an autobiographical meditation on the nature of theatre and the role of the director. This captivating book which will be attractive to anyone interested in Shakespeare and modern theatre.

This volume investigates performance cultures as rich and dynamic environments of knowledge practice through which distinctive epistemologies are continuously (re)generated, cultivated, and celebrated. Epistemologies are dynamic formations of rules, tools, and procedures not only for understanding but also for doing knowledges. This volume deals in particular with epistemological challenges posed by practices and processes of interweaving performance cultures. These challenges arise in artistic and academic contexts because of hierarchies between epistemologies. European colonialism worked determinedly, violently, and often with devastating effects on instituting and sustaining a hegemony of modern Euro-American rules of knowing in many parts of the world. Therefore, Interweaving Epistemologies critically interrogates the (im)possibilities of interweaving epistemologies in artistic and academic contexts today. Writing from diverse geographical locations and knowledge cultures, the book's contributors-philosophers, political scientists as well as practitioners and scholars of theater, performance, and dance-investigate prevailing forms of epistemic ignorance and violence. They introduce key concepts and theories that enable critique of unequal power relations between epistemologies. Moreover, contributions explore historical cases of interweaving epistemologies and examine innovative present-day methods of working across and through epistemological divides in non-hegemonic, sustainable, creative, and critical ways. Ideal for practitioners, students and researchers of theater, performance, and dance as well as of philosophy and history (of science), Interweaving Epistemologies emphasizes the urgent need to acknowledge, study and promote epistemological plurality and diversity in practices of performance making as well as in scholarship on theater and performance around the globe today.

Art + Archive provides an in-depth analysis of the connection between art and the archive at the turn of the twenty-first century. The book examines how the archive emerged in art writing in the mid-1990s and how its subsequent ubiquity can be understood in light of wider social, technological, philosophical and art-historical conditions and concerns. Deftly combining writing on archives from different disciplines with artistic practices, the book clarifies the function and meaning of one of the most persistent artworld buzzwords of recent years, shedding light on the conceptual and historical implications of the so-called archival turn in contemporary art. -- .

"I am Jugoslovenka" argues that queer-feminist artistic and political resistance were paradoxically enabled by socialist Yugoslavia's unique history of patriarchy and women's emancipation. Spanning performance and conceptual art, video works, film and pop music, lesbian activism and press photos of female snipers in the Yugoslav wars, the book analyses feminist resistance in a range of performative actions that manifest the radical embodiment of Yugoslavia's anti-fascist, transnational and feminist legacies. It covers celebrated and lesser-known artists from the 1970s to today, including Marina Abramovic, Sanja Ivekovic, Vlasta Delimar, Tanja Ostojic, Selma Selman and Helena Janecic, along with music legends Lepa Brena and Esma Redzepova. "I am Jugoslovenka" tells a unique story of women's resistance through the intersection of feminism, socialism and nationalism in East European visual culture. -- .

Written by a scholar of satire and politics, Trump Was a Joke explains why satire is an exceptional foil for absurd political times and why it did a particularly good job of making sense of Trump. Covering a range of comedic interventions, it analyzes why political satire is surprisingly effective at keeping us sane when politics is making us crazy. Its goal is to highlight the unique power of political satire to encourage critical thinking, foster civic action, and further rational debate in moments of political hubris and hysteria. The book has been endorsed by Bassem Youssef, referred to as the Jon Stewart of Egypt, and Srdja Popovic, author of Blueprint for Revolution, who used satirical activism to bring down Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic. With a foreword by award-winning filmmaker, satirist and activist Michael Moore, this study will be of interest to readers who follow politics and enjoy political comedy and will appeal to the communications, comedy studies, media studies, political science, rhetoric, cultural studies, and American studies markets.

Shakespeare and Cultural Appropriation pushes back against two intertwined binaries: the idea that appropriation can only be either theft or gift, and the idea that cultural appropriation should be narrowly defined as an appropriative contest between a hegemonic and marginalized power. In doing so, the contributions to the collection provide tools for thinking about appropriation and cultural appropriation as spectrums constantly evolving and renegotiating between the poles of exploitation and appreciation. This collection argues that the concept of cultural appropriation is one of the most undertheorized yet evocative frameworks for Shakespeare appropriation studies to address the relationships between power, users, and uses of Shakespeare. By robustly theorizing cultural appropriation, this collection offers a foundation for interrogating not just the line between exploitation and appreciation, but also how distinct values, biases, and inequities determine where that line lies. Ultimately, this collection broadly employs cultural appropriation to rethink how Shakespeare studies can redirect attention back to power structures, cultural ownership and identity, and Shakespeare's imbrication within those networks of power and influence. Throughout the contributions in this collection, which explore twentieth and twenty-first century global appropriations of Shakespeare across modes and genres, the collection uncovers how a deeper exploration of cultural appropriation can reorient the inquiries of Shakespeare appropriation studies. This collection will be of great interest to students and scholars in theatre and performance studies, Shakespeare studies and adaption studies.

Gives a fresh and contemporary take on the ways in which contemporary US sexual politics plays out on its biggest stage with analyses of Promises, Promises, Newsies, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, The Color Purple, and Frozen. Written accessibly and clearly for all levels of student and scholar in musical theatre as well as interdisciplinary areas of queer, gender, and cultural studies. The most up to date study available of Broadway's cultural politics.

Vocal Traditions: Training in the Performing Arts explores the 18 most influential voice training techniques and methodologies of the past 100 years. This extensive international collection highlights historically important voice teachers, contemporary leaders in the field, and rising schools of thought. Each vocal tradition showcases its instructional perspective, offering backgrounds on the founder(s), key concepts, example exercises, and further resources. The text's systematic approach allows a unique pedagogical evaluation of the vast voice training field, which not only includes university and conservatory training but also private session and workshop coaching as well. Covering a global range of voice training systems, this book will be of interest to those studying voice, singing, speech, and accents, as well as researchers from the fields of communication, music education, and performance. This book was originally published as a series in the Voice and Speech Review journal.

Devil May Cry 5 showcases stylish mayhem against fiendish foes at the hands of Devil Hunters with demon blood in their veins. Series mainstay Dante, his nephew Nero, and mysterious newcomer V join forces to hack and slash their way through enemies on a mission to stop the destruction of the human world at the hands of the Demon King Urizen. Devil May Cry 5: Official Artworks collect the fantasy artwork behind this landmark installment in the fan-favorite franchise. Inside you'll find character artwork, weapon designs, creatures, locations, storyboards, and plenty of creative commentary.

This book answers one of the most puzzling questions in contemporary art: how did performance artists of the '60s and '70s, famous for their opposition both to lasting art and the political establishment, become the foremost monument builders of the '80s, '90s and today? Not by selling out, nor by making self-undermining monuments. This book argues that the centrality of performance to monuments and indeed public art in general rests not on its ephemerality or anti-authoritarian rhetoric, but on its power to build interpersonal bonds both personal and social. Specifically, the survival of body art in photographs that cross time and space to meet new audiences makes it literally into a monument. The argument of the book spans art in Austria, the former Yugoslavia, and Germany: Valie Export, Peter Weibel and the Viennese Actionists (working in Austria and abroad), Marina Abramovic, Sanja Ivecovic and Braco Dimitrijevic (working in Yugoslavia and abroad), and Joseph Beuys and Jochen Gerz (working in Germany and abroad). These artists began by critiquing monumentality in authoritarian public space, and expanded the models developed on the streets of Vienna, Munich, Rome, Belgrade and Zagreb to participatory monuments that delegate political authority to the audience. Readers interested in contemporary art, politics, photography and performance will find in this book new facts and arguments for their interconnection. -- .

The New Cinematic Weird argues that weird fiction is rising also in audiovisual culture. Presenting several detailed analyses of weird cinematic works, the book shows how the new cinematic weird is best understood as atmospheric worldings - affective intensities that suffuse the experience of the cinematic weird. The weird exists as an experiential field, an inflation of the world. These worldings disclose a variety of experiences. The book engagingly shows how creepy, unsettling, ominous, uneasy, and eerie atmospheres provide a way into the weird experience. This book is important to anyone interested in the audiovisual weird, cinematic atmospheres, how audiovisual media produce worlds, and how weird fiction challenges our conception of the way the world is.