" Vengeance Can Wait " navigates Japanese sub-culture as it charts a different kind of love story. A couple has the ideal domestic relationship: he spends his days planning the perfect revenge, while she awaits her perfect punishment. Dark, twisted, and touching, the couple comes to understand the "kinks" in their relationship - and embrace them.

This pioneering study is one of the major publications in the increasingly popular and largely undocumented area of circus studies. Through photographs and illustrations, Peta Tait presents an extraordinary survey of 140 years of trapeze acts and the socially changing ideas of muscular action in relation to our understanding of gender and sexuality. She questions how spectators see and enjoy aerial actions, and what cultural identities are presented by bodies in fast, physical aerial movement. Adeptly locating aerial performance within the wider cultural history of bodies and their identities, Circus Bodies explores this subject through a range of films such as Trapeze (1956) and Wings of Desire (1987) and Tait also examines live performances including: * the first trapeze performers: Leotard and the Hanlon Brothers * female celebrities; Azella, Sanyeah, black French aerialist LaLa, the infamous Leona Dare, and the female human cannonballs * twentieth-century gender benders; Barbette and Luisita Leers * the Codonas, Concellos, Gaonas, Vazquez and Pages troupes * imaginative aerial acts in Cirque de Soleil and Circus Oz productions. This book will prove an invaluable resource for all students and scholars interested in this fascinating field.

This pioneering study is one of the major publications in the increasingly popular and largely undocumented area of circus studies. Through photographs and illustrations, Peta Tait presents an extraordinary survey of 140 years of trapeze acts and the socially changing ideas of muscular action in relation to our understanding of gender and sexuality. She questions how spectators see and enjoy aerial actions, and what cultural identities are presented by bodies in fast, physical aerial movement. Adeptly locating aerial performance within the wider cultural history of bodies and their identities, Circus Bodies explores this subject through a range of films such as Trapeze (1956) and Wings of Desire (1987) and Tait also examines live performances including: * the first trapeze performers: Leotard and the Hanlon Brothers * female celebrities; Azella, Sanyeah, black French aerialist LaLa, the infamous Leona Dare, and the female human cannonballs * twentieth-century gender benders; Barbette and Luisita Leers * the Codonas, Concellos, Gaonas, Vazquez and Pages troupes * imaginative aerial acts in Cirque de Soleil and Circus Oz productions. This book will prove an invaluable resource for all students and scholars interested in this fascinating field.

In his intriguing new book, David Goldblatt examines what he calls "the complex logic of ventriloquism" and its relationship with art, philosophy and the artistic process. In the conversational exchange between ventriloquist and dummy, Goldblatt recognizes a speaking in other voices, illusion without deception, talking to oneself, effacing oneself as speaker, being beside oneself - the ancient Greek notion of Ecstasisi - and the animation of inanimate objects as an unabashed anthropomorphism.
Like ventriloqual dummies, artworks take on personalities, characters of their own, often saying what the artist herself would or could not say in voices distinct from her (our) daily modes of expression. Goldblatt uses ventriloquism as an apt metaphor to help understand a variety of artworld phenomena - how the vocal vacillation between ventriloquist and dummy work is mimicked in the relationship of artist, artwork and audience, including the ways in which artworks are interpreted. Moreover, Goldblatt uses the concept of ventriloquism to generate insights into many of our important philosophers' writings on the arts, discussing the work of Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida, Cavell, Wittgenstein, among others.
Featuring a critical commentary by Garry L. Hagberg and preface by series editor, Saul Ostrow.

"Science and the Stanislavsky Tradition of Acting "offers new insight into the well-known tradition of acting. Rooted in practice this is the first book to contextualize the Stanislavsky tradition with reference to parallel developments in science, it presents an alternative perspective based on philosophy, physics, romantic science and theories of industrial management.
Working from practical sources, historical and archive material Jonathan Pitches traces an evolutionary journey of actor training from the roots of the Russian tradition, Konstantin Stanislavsky, to the contemporary Muscovite director, Anatoly Vasiliev. The book explores two key developments that emerge from Stanislavsky's system - one linear, rational and empirical, while the other is fluid, organic and intuitive. The otherwise highly contrasting acting theories of Vsevolod Meyerhold (biomechanics) and Lee Strasberg (the Method) are dealt with under the banner of the rational or Newtonian paradigm; Michael Chekov's acting technique and the little known ideas of Anatoly Vasiliev form the centerpiece of the other Romantic, organic strain of practice. "Science and the Stanislavsky Tradition of Acting" opens up the theatre laboratories of five major practitioners in the twentieth and twenty first centuries and scrutinizes their acting methodologies from a scientific perspective.

This is the first English translation of Michael Chekhov's two-volume autobiography, combining The Path of the Actor (1927) and extensive extracts from his later volume Life and Encounters. Full of illuminating anecdotes and insightful observations involving prominent characters from the MAT and the European theatre of the early twentieth century, Chekhov takes us through events in his acting career and personal life, from his childhood in St. Petersburg until his emigration to Latvia and Lithuania in the early 1930s. Accompanying Chekhov's witty, penetrating, and immensely touching accounts are extensive and authoritative notes compiled by leading Russian Chekhov scholar, Andrei Kirillov. Anglo-Russian trained actor Bella Merlin provides a useful hands-on overview of how the contemporary practitioner might utilise and develop Chekhov's ideas. Chekhov was arguably one of the greatest actors of the twentieth century. His life made a huge impact on his profession, and his actor-training techniques inspired many a Hollywood legend - including such actors as Anthony Hopkins and Jack Nicholson -while his books outlining his teaching methods and philosophy of acting are still bestsellers today The Path of the Actor is an extraordinary document which allows us unprecedented access into the life, times, mind and soul of a truly extraordinary man.

Talkin' to Myself, Blues Lyrics, 1921-1942 is a compendium of lyrics by the great blues recording artists of the classic blues era. It includes over 2000 songs, transcribed directly from the original recordings, making it by far the most comprehensive and accurate collection of blues lyrics available. Blues lyrics are recognized as a unique form of African-American poetry. They reflect myriad issues, well beyond the cliches of love gone wrong. The blues was a means of communicating a wide range of feelings on topics as varied as love, illness, politics, work and employment, recreation - the entire range of the African-American experience. Artists covered include many major blues performers, as well as the obscure. Some of the better known names include Kokomo Arnold, Blind Willie McTell, Robert Johnson, Charlie Patton, Lead Belly, Son House, Skip James, Blind Blake, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and dozens more. Today, the blues is enjoying a period of popularity and study that is unparalleled in their century-plus tradition. Talkin' to Myself. African-American culture, and folk poetry - as well as the myriad blues fans around the globe. It will stand as the standard collection for decades to come.

Talkin' to Myself: Blues Lyrics, 1921-1942 is a compendium of lyrics by the great blues recording artists of the classic blues era. It includes over 2000 songs, transcribed directly from the original recordings, making it by far the most comprehensive and accurate collection of blues lyrics available. Blues lyrics are recognized as a unique form of African-American poetry. They reflect myriad issues, well beyond the cliches of love gone wrong. The blues was a means of communicating a wide range of feelings on topics as varied as love, illness, politics, work and employment, recreation--the entire range of the African-American experience. Artists covered include many major blues performers, as well as the obscure. Some of the better known names include Kokomo Arnold; Blind Willie McTell; Robert Johnson; Charlie Patton; Lead Belly; Son House; Skip James; Blind Blake; Blind Lemon Jefferson; and dozens more. Today, the blues is enjoying a period of popularity and study that is unparalleled in their century-plus tradition. Talkin' to Myself: Blues Lyrics, 1921-1942 will appeal to students of American music, African-American culture, and folk poetry--as well as the myriad blues fans around the globe. It will stand as the standard collection for decades to come.

Arguing that Brecht 's aesthetic theories are still highly relevant today, and that an appreciation of his theory and theatre is essential to an understanding of modern critical theory, this book examines the influence of Brecht 's aesthetic on the pre-eminent materialist critics of the twentieth century: Louis Althusser, Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes, Frederic Jameson, Theodor W. Adorno and Raymond Williams.

Re-reading Brecht through the lens of post-structuralism, Sean Carney asserts that there is a Lacanian Brecht and a Derridean Brecht: the result of which is a new Brecht whose vital importance for the present is located in decentred theories of subjectivity.

Brecht and Critical Theory maps the many ways in which Brechtian thinking pervades critical thought today, informing the critical tools and stances that make up the contemporary study of aesthetics.

Sustainability in an Imaginary World explores the social agency of art and its connection to complex issues of sustainability. Over the past decade, interest in art's agency has ballooned as an increasing number of fields turn to the arts with ever-expanding expectations. Yet just as art is being heralded as a magic bullet of social change, research is beginning to throw cautionary light on such enthusiasm, challenging the linear, prescriptive, instrumental expectations such transdisciplinary interactions often imply. In this, art finds itself at a treacherous crossroads, unable to turn a deaf ear to calls for help from an increasing number of ostensibly non-aesthetic fields, yet in answering such prescriptive urgencies, jeopardizing the very power for which its help was sought in the first place. This book goes in search of a way forward, proposing a theory of art aiming to preserve the integrity of arts practices within transdisciplinary mandates. This approach is then explored through a series of case studies developed in collaboration with some of Canada's most prominent artists, including internationally renowned nature poet Don McKay; Italian composer and Head of Vancouver New Music, Giorgio Magnanesi; the renowned Electric Company Theatre, led by Kevin Kerr; and finally through a largescale multimedia installation aiming to reimagine the relationship between climate, culture, and human agency. Sustainability in an Imaginary World will be of great interest to students and scholars of arts-based research fields, sustainability studies, and environmental humanities.

To his many fans, he was known simply as "Mr. Excitement," a singer whose music and stage presence influenced generations of performers, from Elvis Presley to Michael Jackson. Jackie Wilson: Lonely Teardrops looks at the life and career of this deeply troubled artist. Published briefly in a limited edition in the United Kingdom, this Routledge edition makes available this definitive biography for Wilson's legions of fans. Also includes two 8-page photo inserts.

This remarkable volume challenges scholars and students to look beyond a dominant European and North American 'metropolitan bank' of Shakespeare knowledge. As well as revealing the potential for a new understanding of Shakespeare's plays, Martin Orkin adopts a fresh approach to issues of power, where 'proximations' emerge from a process of dialogue and challenge traditional notions of authority. readers have journeyed to one another across time and space, to and from countless and always different historical, geographical and ideological locations. Engagement with a Shakespeare text always entails in part, then, cultural encounter or clash, and readings are shaped by a reader's particular location and knowledge. Part I of this book encourages us to recognise the way in which 'local' or 'non-metropolitan' knowledges and experiences might extend understanding of Shakespeare's texts and their locations. Part II demonstrates the use of local as well as metropolitan knowledges in exploring the presentation of masculinity in Shakespeare's late plays. These plays themselves dramatise encounters with different cultures and, crucially, challenges to established authority. global capitalism and the masculinist imperatives that drive it, Orkin's daring, powerful work will have reverberations throughout, but also well beyond the field of Shakespeare studies.

Alan Brown's pantomimes recreate those of Victorian times, blending traditional elements - including Harlequin interludes and suggestions for period songs - with subtle updatings to suit modern young audiences.Large flexible cast

This book offers a clearly written and engaging introduction to the basics of interactive digital media. As our reliance on and daily usage of websites, mobile apps, kiosks, games, VR/AR and devices that respond to our commands has increased, the need for practitioners who understand these technologies is growing. Author Julia Griffey provides a valuable guide to the fundamentals of this field, offering best practices and common pitfalls throughout. The book also notes opportunities within the field of interactive digital media for professionals with different types of skills, and interviews with experienced practitioners offer practical wisdom for readers. Additional features of this book include: An overview of the history, evolution and impact of interactive media; A spotlight on the development process and contributing team members; Analysis of the components of interactive digital media and their design function (graphics, animation, audio, video, typography, color); An introduction to coding languages for interactive media; and A guide to usability in interactive media. Introduction to Interactive Digital Media will help both students and professionals understand the varied creative, technical, and collaborative skills needed in this exciting and emerging field.

Expanding upon longstanding concerns in cultural history about the relation of text and image, this book explores how ideas move across and between expressive forms. The contributions draw from art and architectural history, film, theater, performance studies, and social and cultural history to identify and dissect the role that the visual and performing arts can play in the experience and understanding of the past.

The essays highlight the role of oral history in the documentation of the visual and performing arts. They share a common set of questions as they explore, firmly grounded in their distinctive disciplinary standpoints, the circuit of word, gesture, object in the formation and reproduction of knowledge, identity, and community. Blending theory and case study, they cover subjects such as the response of artists to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission; violence in Columbia and Mexico and the Balkan Wars; the circuit of sexual desire in contemporary art and photography; and sites of collective and personal memory, including the Internet, the urban landscape, family photographs, and hip hop.

Stressing the relationship of media to the formation of collective memory, the volume explores how media intertextuality creates overlapping repertoires for understanding the past and the present. Scholars of art history, media and cultural studies, literature, and performance studies will all find this work a valuable resource.

2005 Baker's Plays High School Playwrighting Competition
Looking for the thrill of exploration, gold, and adventure in a faraway land, Maria accompanies her Uncle Francisco to Peru only to watch him turn from brave captain to a greedy ruler.

This collection interrogates and stimulates deep, cross-disciplinary engagement with the various understandings and interplays of 'radio modernisms' from the early decades of the twentieth century through to the 1950s. Academics from a range of different disciplines explore their common interests in the richness and heterogeneity of BBC Radio's imaginative programming - in terms of sound; as cultural events from specific moments in time; as team creations; as something experienced live in the domestic context; and as cultural works that, in many cases, attracted a certain canonical pedigree. Radio modernisms are, as these chapters demonstrate, a combination of the particular, the contingent, and the contextual. More than a decade after the publication of the first scholarly works to yoke together 'modernism' and 'radio', this collection emphasises the plurality of 'modernisms' as a defining aspect of contemporary BBC historiography. The authors bring multiple lenses to bear - including race, gender, and transnationalism - in order to (re)locate twentieth-century radio programming in broad, expansive contexts. They also underline the dynamic entanglements of radio - and radiogenic feature programmes, in particular - with other kinds of media and cultural forms and formats, reframing radio as a site of and vehicle for remediation and intermediality. In examining the myriad ways in which radio gave shape to new modernities, and both evolved and constituted new forms of modernism, this collection offers fresh perspectives on the interconnected significance of 'radio modernisms' within the socio-cultural, literary, and political landscapes of twentieth-century Britain. This book was originally published as a special issue of Media History.

THE LURE OF PERFECTION: FASHION AND BALLET, 1780-1830 offers a unique look at how ballet influenced contemporary fashion and women's body image, and how street fashions in turn were reflected by the costumes worn by ballet dancers. Through years of research, the author has traced the interplay between fashion, social trends, and the development of dance. During the 18th century, women literally took up twice as much space as men; their billowing dresses ballooned out from their figures, sometimes a full 55 inches, to display costly jewelry and fine brocade work; similar costumes appeared on stage. But clothing also limited her movement; it literally disabled them, making the dances themselves little more than tableaux. Movement was further inhibited by high shoes and tight corsets; thus the image of the rigidly straight, long-lined dancer is as much a product of clothing as aesthetics. However, with changing times came new trends. An increased interest in natural movement and the common folk led to less-restrictive clothing. As viewers demanded more virtuosic dancers, women literally danced their way to freedom.
THE LURE OF PERFECTION will interest students of dance and cultural history, and women's studies. It is a fascinating, well-researched look at the interplay of fashion, dance, and culture-still very much a part of our world today.

This key text will be the first full-length research tool on Adrian Willaert, the Renaissance composer of motets and madrigals who came to prominence in the first part of the sixteenth century, and should prove invaluable to researchers and students.

This volume focuses on the performing arts of the Asian diasporas and intercultural performances in the context of modernity and globalisation. A wide range of performing arts of the Asian diasporas and diverse intercultural performance practices across the world are examined by scholars of Asian studies, theatre studies, anthropology, cultural studies, dance ethnology and ethnomusicology. These essays locate the performing arts in late modernity as a discursive field in which the boundary between tradition and translation' and authenticity and hybridity' are negotiated and redefined to create a multitude of meanings and aesthetics in global and local contexts.
Various issues are addressed, including questions of identity, ethnicity, notions of displacement, gender, inter-ethnic power relations, inter-cultural negotiations and the social and political implications of performance. A number of cultural processes associated with diasporas and their performing arts are examined, such as the construction of diaspora memory', the translation of imagined' tradition, and cultural adaptation and innovation in a new home', all of which give shape to hybrid and multiple identities which cut across and intersect geo-political and national boundaries.

THE LURE OF PERFECTION: FASHION AND BALLET, 1780-1830 offers a unique look at how ballet influenced contemporary fashion and women's body image, and how street fashions in turn were reflected by the costumes worn by ballet dancers. Through years of research, the author has traced the interplay between fashion, social trends, and the development of dance. During the 18th century, women literally took up twice as much space as men; their billowing dresses ballooned out from their figures, sometimes a full 55 inches, to display costly jewelry and fine brocade work; similar costumes appeared on stage. But clothing also limited her movement; it literally disabled them, making the dances themselves little more than tableaux. Movement was further inhibited by high shoes and tight corsets; thus the image of the rigidly straight, long-lined dancer is as much a product of clothing as aesthetics. However, with changing times came new trends. An increased interest in natural movement and the common folk led to less-restrictive clothing. As viewers demanded more virtuosic dancers, women literally danced their way to freedom.
THE LURE OF PERFECTION will interest students of dance and cultural history, and women's studies. It is a fascinating, well-researched look at the interplay of fashion, dance, and culture-still very much a part of our world today.

This study provides an overview of philosophical questions relating to sight and vision. It discusses the intertwinement of seeing and ways of seeing against the background of an entirely different theoretical framework. Seeing is both a proven means of acquiring information and a personality-specific way of disclosing the apparent, perceptible world, conditioned by individual and cultural variations. In a peculiar way, the eye holds a middle position between inside and outside of the self and its relations towards itself and others. This book provides a way out of false alternatives by offering a third way with reference to concrete cases of aesthetical and ethical experiences. It will be of particular interest to scholars of the phenomenology and philosophy of perception and it will be valuable to students of philosophy, cultural studies and art.

This new text examines recent popular Chinese films and derivative cultural phenomena, with a focus on films directed by celebrity directors such as Han Han, Guo Jingming, Xu Jinglei and Zhao Wei. In opposition to Fifth and Sixth Generation Chinese filmmakers who explored the grand-narratives of history, the oppression of the pre-socialist and socialist eras, and those marginalized by socio-economic changes, the celebrity directors at the heart of this book center on the new trends of living and emotional challenges faced by contemporary Chinese people, in particular the younger generations. This book sheds light on newly emerging social and cultural fashions in contemporary China, such as the social stigma of being 'left-over' (reflected in Xu Jinglei's films), the issue of wealth 'flaunting' (represented in Guo Jingming's films) or nostalgia for the long lost innocence of adolescence (demonstrated in Zhao Wei's film). Considering present-day consumer capitalism through the lens of cinema, this text analyses in detail the significance of films chosen for their relevance, providing a reflection of social reality and cultural changes in 21st century China.

Nuts and Bolts Filmmaking, an ideal book for the rapidly growing number of low-budget filmmakers, provides how-to information on the day-to-day techniques of actual low-budget production. Containing construction details describing how to replicate expensive tools for under $30 a piece, this book provides quick and inexpensive remedies to both the most common and most difficult production challenges. Nuts and Bolts Filmmaking is an invaluable resource to anyone looking to make a film without a big budget.
* Achieve professional results with inexpensive materials from your local hardware store
*A must-have reference for all low-budget and independent filmmakers
* Time-saving tips and techniques with easy-to-follow photos