This study explores the dynamic relations between cultural forms and political formations in some urban cultural movements. The analysis is based on a detailed study of the structure and development of the London Notting Hill Carnival, widely described as Europe's biggest street festival. Started in 1966 as a small-scale, multi-ethnic local festival, it grew into a massive West-Indian dominated affair that over the years occasioned violent confrontations between black youth and the police. The carnival developed and mobilized a homogenous and communal West-Indian culture that helped in the struggle against rampant racism. The celebration is contrasted with other carnival movements, such as California's 'Renaissance Pleasure Faire'. Analytically, this is a follow-up to Cohen's earlier studies of the relations between drama and politics in some urban religious, ethnic and elitist movements in Africa. The conclusion focuses on the processes underlying the transformation of rational political strategies into non-rational cultural forms.

By the end of America s Golden Age of Magic, Chicago had taken center stage in front of an American audience drawn to the craft by the likes of Harry Houdini and Howard Thurston. Cashing in on a craze that rivaled big-band mania, magic shops and clubs sprang up everywhere across the Windy City, packed in customers and put down roots. Over the last century, for example, Magic, Inc. has outfitted magicians from Harry Blackstone Sr. to Penn and Teller to David Copperfield. Magic was an integral part of Chicago s culture, from its earliest venture into live television to the card sharps and hucksters lurking in its amusement parks and pool halls. David Witter keeps track of the shell game of Chicago s fascinating magic history from its vaudeville circuit to its contemporary resurgence.

This book presents a contemporary overview of our most ubiquitous cultural phenomena - festivals. It is able to do so by taking a powerful and unique case-study focused, theoretically rigorous and pan-European approach. It comes from a hugely expert and experienced team of editors and authors drawn from across Europe and is based on the groundbreaking work of the European Festival Research Project (EFRP). The EFRP and the book are focused on understanding the causes and implications of the current growth in festivals internationally, and the implications this has across major sectors ranging from tourism to culture. The key themes the books brings out are: *The politics, programming, impacts, governance and management of festivals; *The social, cultural, political, economic and physical contexts in which festivals operate; *The potential of festivals to explore and stimulate a more risk-oriented approach to the arts; *Key conclusions, trends, forecasts and recommendations for the sector in the future. The exciting range of real world examples and the mix of practical and academic contributions provides readers with a broad perspective across agendas from economic regeneration and tourism, to education and social inclusion. An indispensable text for students in arts and festival management, events, tourism, hospitality and cultural policy and management courses. It is also essential reading for festival and events managers, public authorities and existing and potential sponsors.

In this sophisticated and compelling introduction to puppet theatre, Penny Francis offers engaging contemporary perspectives on this universal art-form. She provides an account of puppetry's different facets, from its demands and techniques, through its uses and abuses, to its history and philosophy. Now recognized as a valuable and powerful medium used in the making of most forms of theatre and filmed work, those referring to Puppetry will discover something of the roots, dramaturgy, literature and techniques of this visual art form. The book gathers together material from an international selection of sources, bringing puppet theatre to life for the student, practitioner and amateur alike.

In the cool, pre-dawn hours on a June night in 1918, a train engineer closed his cab window as he chugged toward Hammond, Indiana. He drifted to sleep, and his train bore down on the idle Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus Train. Soon after, the sleeping engineer's locomotive plowed into the circus train. In the subsequent wreckage and blaze, more than two hundred circus performers were injured and eighty-six were killed, most of whom were interred in a mass grave in the Showmen's Rest section of Chicago's Woodlawn Cemetery. Join local historian Richard Lytle as he recounts, in the fullest retelling to date, the details of this tragedy and its role in the overall evolution and demise of a unique entertainment industry.