In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in Early Modern Festivals. These spectacles articulated the self-image of ruling elites and played out the tensions of the diverse social strata. Responding to the growing academic interest in festivals this volume focuses on the early modern Iberian world, in particular the spectacles staged by and for the Spanish Habsburgs. The study of early modern Iberian festival culture in Europe and the wider world is surprisingly limited compared to the published works devoted to other kingdoms at the time. There is a clear need for scholarly publications to examine festivals as a vehicle for the presence of Spanish culture beyond territorial boundaries. The present books responds to this shortcoming. Festivals and ceremonials played a major role in the Spanish world; through them local identities as well as a common Spanish culture made their presence manifest within and beyond the peninsula through ephemeral displays, music and print. Local communities often conflated their symbols of identity with religious images and representations of the Spanish monarchy. The festivals (fiestas in Spanish) materialized the presence of the Spanish diaspora in other European realms. Royal funerals and proclamations served to establish kingly presence in distant and not so distant lands. The socio-political, religious and cultural nuances that were an intrinsic part of the territories of the empire were magnified and celebrated in the Spanish festivals in Europe, Iberia and overseas viceroyalties. Following a foreword and an introduction the remaining 12 chapters are divided up into four sections. The first explores Habsburg Visual culture at court and its relationship with the creation of a language of triumph and the use of tapestries in festivals. The second part examines triumphal entries in Madrid, Lisbon, Cremona, Milan, Pavia and the New World; the third deals with the relationship between religion and the empire through the examination of royal funerals, hagiography and calendric celebrations. The fourth part of the book explores cultural, artistic and musical exchange in Naples and Rome. Taken together these essays contribute further to our growing appreciation of the importance of early-modern festival culture in general, and their significance in the world of the Spanish Habsburgs in particular.

Highlighted in this volume is the detective play The Inspector and the Hero by Femi Osofisan, one of Africa's leading playwrights. The play has until now only been published in Nigeria. This open issue of African Theatre is a departure from the traditional themed format to showcase the plethora of styles, approaches and perspectives that populate the contemporary field of African theatre studies, with contributions from Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa and Ghana. Focusing mainly on case studies, contributors engage a variety of performance forms, ranging from investigations into radical dramatic and popular musical performances, through "street theatre" (festivals and masquerade shows) and pop culture, to consideration of applied theatre, dance, audience, cultural performances and folktales. Articles address African American and African cultural dialogue; choreographic study; the carnivalization of indigenous African festivals; the stigmatization of disability; the performance of nationality, as well as orality and African performance aesthetics. Highlighted in this volume is the playscript of the detective play The Inspector and the Hero by Femi Osofisan, one of Africa's foremost playwrights. Volume Editor: CHUKWUMA OKOYE Series Editors: Yvette Hutchison, Reader, Department of Theatre & Performance Studies, University of Warwick; Chukwuma Okoye, Reader in African Theatre & Performance, University of Ibadan; Jane Plastow, Professor of African Theatre, University of Leeds.

The newspapers called him "Overshadowing Monarch Mastodon, " "Behemoth of Holy Writ" and "Prodigious Mountain." He was the main event at the greatest show on earth: Jumbo, at around 61/2 tons and almost 12 feet tall, the biggest elephant anyone had ever seen. Jumbos mere presence in the Barnum, Bailey and Hutchinson circus guaranteed an additional $3,000 a day in box office receipts. More of an exhibit than a performer, Jumbo was simply paraded around the three rings. But still the people came, just to marvel at the size of this monster pachyderm. This work traces Jumbos capture in East Africa, his life in the London Zoo, the controversy over his sale for $10,000 to American showman P.T. Barnum, his journey across the Atlantic, his life as the most famous attraction in Barnums circus, and his tragic death in a railway accident in Canada in 1885.

Magic has enchanted humankind for millennia, evoking terror, laughter, shock, and amazement. Once persecuted as heretics and sorcerers, magicians have always been conduits to a parallel universe of limitless possibility-whether invoking spirits, reading minds, or inverting the laws of nature by sleight of hand. Long before science fiction, virtual realities, video games, and the Internet, the craft of magic was the most powerful fantasy world man had ever known. As the pioneers of special effects throughout history, magicians have never ceased to mystify us by making the impossible possible. This book celebrates more than 500 years of the stunning visual culture of the world's greatest magicians. Featuring more than 750 rarely seen vintage posters, photographs, handbills, and engravings as well as paintings by Hieronymus Bosch and Bruegel among others, The Magic Book traces the history of magic as a performing art from the 1400s to the 1950s. Combining sensational images with incisive text, the book explores the evolution of the magicians' craft, from medieval street performers to the brilliant stage magicians who gave rise to cinematic special effects; from the 19th century's golden age of magic to groundbreaking daredevils like Houdini and the early 20th century's vaudevillians.

Mardi Gras Indians explores how sacred and secular expressions of Carnival throughout the African diaspora came together in a gumbo-sized melting pot to birth one of the most unique traditions celebrating African culture, Indigenous peoples, and Black Americans. Williams ties together the fragments of the ancient traditions with the expressed experiences of the contemporary. From the sangamentos of the Kongolese and the calumets of the various tribes of the lower Mississippi River valley to one-on-one interviews with today's Black masking tribe members, this book highlights the spirit of resistance and rebellion upon which this culture was built.

For the 50th anniversary of the Pride March comes a visual celebration of the diverse, vibrant, and exuberant attendees of New York City's Pride. This gorgeous bright book honors the colorful celebrants of the New York City Pride March and Dyke March, capturing the faces that bring the rainbows and liveliness Pride shines with today. Through joyful portraits of two hundred LGBTQ+ community members and allies from New York City's WorldPride, this is a resplendent one-of-a-kind volume, a portal to the spirit, sequins, and sexual liberty of the weekend, a keepsake tribute to the power of love over hate, and a meaningful touchstone, immortalizing the effervescence, excitement, and positive energy of those who attend.

Protests at the Miss World contest in 1970 attracted headlines around the world. This book portrays the new and vibrant women's liberation movement of the 70s. It tells how women protested inside and outside the Albert Hall, who they were, what took them into the women's liberation movement, how they organised, why they were protesting and of women's arrests and trials. The Director, Producer and writer of the film Misbehaviour, comment on the beauty industry, then and now. Rights to that film have been sold to most European countries. (Film due out in the USA on 26th September 2020).

Once dancers joined ballet, modern dance groups or chorus lines and did what they were directed to do. Today the art is more collaborative but still bound by old-fashioned structures impose by university dance studios. Today there are too many graduating students and little steady work, few auditions and decreasing opportunity for newcomers. The best dancers today are 'bodies for hire', those who are versatile, open-minded, independent and comfortable in every genre. Choreography has become a more democratic process in which dancers come to depend on each other.

For eight centuries the City of London has hosted one of the world's greatest public parades, as the newly elected Lord Mayor embarks on a procession through the heart of the City to the edge of Westminster, culminating in an oath of allegiance to the representatives of the Crown. This ancient tradition has become one of the most eagerly anticipated events in the London calendar, combining pageantry with carnivaleseque levity in a distinctly English blend of grandeur and irreverence. This book brings together a host of experts to provide a portrait of the Show across all periods and from a variety of different perspectives. The landmark locations such as the Guildhall and St Paul's, the regiments and livery companies with a proud history of participation in the Show, the Lord Mayor himself (more recently, herself) and his coach, barge, robes and banquet - all are here, as well as some of the fascinating ways in which the Show has been represented, from the paintings of Canaletto and the cartoons of George Cruikshank to the films of Alfred Hitchcock. This collectionof essays, beautifully illustrated with archive and newly commissioned photography, presents an engagingly kaleidoscopic vision of one of the nation's best-loved annual events.

Clowns' slapstick is their primary mode of performance and allows them to provoke audiences to laughter wherever they perform. This innovative book, focussing on contemporary practice in the USA and Europe over the last 50 years, investigates the nature and function of clown performance in modern society. Through analysis of clowning in a range of settings - theatre, the circus, hospitals, refugee camps and churches - Peacock establishes a theoretical framework for the evaluation of physical comedy.Peacock explores clowning that takes place outside of conventional venues, and also the therapeutic potential of clowning in clown doctor organisations, refugee camps and war zones. Serious Play: Modern Clown Performance is the first book of its kind to consider clowning performance venues and performance styles in the light of Play Theory, including comparisons of traditional clown comedy with contemporary circuses such as Circus OZ and Cirque du Soleil, and an in-depth look at famous clowns such as Nola Rae and Slava Polunin.

Nations in Southeast Asia have gone through a period of rapid change within the last century as they have grappled with independence, modernization, and changing political landscapes. Governments and citizens strive to balance progress with the need to articulate identities that resonate with the pre-colonial past and look towards the future. Puppets and Cities: Articulating Identities in Southeast Asia addresses how puppetry complements and combines with urban spaces to articulate present and future cultural and national identities. Puppetry in Southeast Asia is one of the oldest and most dynamic genres of performance. Bangkok, Jakarta, Phnom Penh, and other dynamic cities are expanding and rapidly changing. Performance brings people together, offers opportunities for economic growth, and bridges public and private spheres. Whether it is a traditional shadow performance borrowing from Star Wars or giant puppets parading down the street-this book examines puppets as objects and in performance to make culture come alive. Based on several years of field research-watching performances, working with artists, and interviewing key stakeholders in Southeast Asian cultural production-the book offers a series of rich case studies of puppet performance from various locations, including: theatre in suburban Bangkok; puppets in museums in Jakarta, Indonesia; puppet companies from Laos PDR, the National Puppet Theatre of Vietnam, and the Giant Puppet Project in Siem Reap, Cambodia; new global puppetry networks through social media; and how puppeteers came together from around the region to create a performance celebrating ASEAN identity.

Festival culture is an area which has attracted increasing interest in the field of Renaissance studies in recent years. In part the outcome of scholars' focus on the place of the city in the establishment and dissemination of common culture, the attention paid to festivals also arises from the interdisciplinary nature of the topic, which reaches across the usual demarcation lines between disciplines such as cultural, political and economic history, literature, and the visual and performing arts. The scholars contributing to this volume include representatives from all these disciplines. Their essays explore common themes in festival culture across Renaissance Europe, including the use of festival in political self-fashioning and the construction of a national self-image. Moreover, in their detailed examination of particular types of festival, they challenge generalizations and demonstrate the degree to which these events were influenced the personality of the prince, the sources of funding for the ceremony, and the role of festival managers. Usually perceived as binding forces promoting social cohesion, festivals held the potential for discord, as some of the essays here reveal. Examining a wide range of festivals including coronations, triumphal entries, funerals and courtly spectacles, this volume provides a more inclusive understanding than hitherto of festivals and their role in European Renaissance culture.

Book XIV of Martial's epigrams, the "Apophoreta," comprising of poetic couplets, is a source of information about one of the principal Roman festivals and about many everyday objects of first-century Rome. This book examines literary, linguistic and textual matters, and the work's social context.

This book explores the circus as a site in and through which science and technology are represented in popular culture. Across eight chapters written by leading scholars - from fields as varied as performance and circus studies, art, media and cultural history, and engineering - the book discusses to what extent the engineering of circus and performing bodies can be understood as a strategy to promote awe, how technological inventions have shaped circus and the cultures it helps constitute, and how much of a mutual shaping this is. What kind of cultural and aesthetic effects does engineering in circus contexts achieve? How do technological inventions and innovations impact on the circus? How does the link between circus and technology manifest in representations and interpretations - imaginaries - of the circus in other media and popular culture? Circus, Science and Technology examines the ways circus can provide a versatile frame for interpreting our relationship with technology.

The Routledge Companion to Puppetry and Material Performance offers a wide-ranging perspective on how scholars and artists are currently re-evaluating the theoretical, historical, and theatrical significance of performance that embraces the agency of inanimate objects. This book proposes a collaborative, responsive model for broader artistic engagement in and with the material world. Its 28 chapters aim to advance the study of the puppet not only as a theatrical object but also as a vibrant artistic and scholarly discipline. This Companion looks at puppetry and material performance from six perspectives: theoretical approaches to the puppet, perspectives from practitioners, revisiting history, negotiating tradition, material performances in contemporary theatre, and hybrid forms. Its wide range of topics, which span 15 countries over five continents, encompasses: * visual dramaturgy * theatrical juxtapositions of robots and humans * contemporary transformations of Indonesian wayang kulit * Japanese ritual body substitutes * recent European productions featuring toys, clay, and food. The book features newly commissioned essays by leading scholars such as Matthew Isaac Cohen, Kathy Foley, Jane Marie Law, Eleanor Margolies, Cody Poulton, and Jane Taylor. It also celebrates the vital link between puppetry as a discipline and as a creative practice with chapters by active practitioners, including Handspring Puppet Company's Basil Jones, Redmoon's Jim Lasko, and Bread and Puppet's Peter Schumann. Fully illustrated with more than 60 images, this volume comprises the most expansive English-language collection of international puppetry scholarship to date.

The culmination of more than thirty years of research, Olympians of the Sawdust Circle is an attempt to identify every major and minor player in the American circus world of the nineteenth century. This A-Z guide lists: surname, given name, dates of birth and death (if known), type of entertainment (and function) with which the individual was associated, and the companies and dates by whom the person was employed. Every researcher and library interested in American circus history will need this seminal guide. An absolutely astonishing piece of scholarship.

Almost twenty years ago, a young Canadian woman, Mary Jane Gagnier, travelled through Mexico on a journey of self-exploration. One evening on the zocalo in Oaxaca, she met a weaver from the nearby village of Teotitlan del Valle, who offered his uncles' help in repairing her broken clarinet. Shortly thereafter the two were married, and rather instantly the Ontario native with wanderlust found herself intimately immersed in the culture and traditions of her new home. Fiestas are synonymous with Mexico and daily ceremonial rituals and celebrations are at the center of Oaxaca's spiritual and social life. Gagnier de Mendoza chronicles the festival cycle in Teotitlan, a Zapotec village located fifteen miles from the capitol. The fiestas here center on the complex art of hosting, whether for family gatherings or religious ceremonies that involves traditional cooking and flower arranging, candle making and fireworks. Throughout the year, village brass bands regularly line the streets in processions featuring plumed dancers and masked actors. Beginning with Christmas posadas through Fiesta of the Black Christ of Esquipulas, pre-wedding and wedding celebrations, Lent and Holy Week, post-Easter revelry celebrating the patron saints, to the conclusion of the festival cycle with Day of the Dead, this memoir chronicles the spirit-life of an ancient community that day after day honors its gods as itself.

Jim Henson was the creative force behind a huge catalog of television series, films, specials, and other productions, even excepting the Muppets. This collection of essays delves into the rest of Henson's body of work, including projects developed during his lifetime and those that represent his legacy. Covered here are Fraggle Rock, The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, The Jim Henson Hour, Dinosaurs, Farscape, and more. The breadth and depth of Henson's influence on both audiences and later productions remains palpable on screens large and small, as this collection attests.

The nineteenth century saw the American circus move from a reviled and rejected form of entertainment to the "Greatest Show on Earth." Circus Life by Micah D. Childress looks at this transition from the perspective of the people who owned and worked in circuses and how they responded to the new incentives that rapid industrialization made possible. The circus has long been a subject of fascination for many, as evidenced by the millions of Americans that have attended circus performances over many decades since 1870 when the circus established itself as a truly unique entertainment enterprise. Yet the few analyses of the circus that do exist have only examined the circus as its own closed microcosm-the "circus family." Circus Life, on the other hand, places circus employees in the larger context of the history of US workers and corporate America. Focusing on the circus as a business-entertainment venture, Childress pushes the scholarship on circuses to new depths, examining the performers, managers, and laborers' lives and how the circus evolved as it grew in popularity over time. Beginning with circuses in the antebellum era, Childress examines changes in circuses as gender balances shifted, industrialization influenced the nature of shows, and customers and crowds became increasingly more middle-class. As a study in sport and social history, Childress's account demonstrates how the itinerant nature of the circus drew specific types of workers and performers, and how the circus was internally in constant upheaval due to the changing nature of its patrons and a changing economy.

Medieval Europe is known for its sense of ceremony and drama. Knightings, tournaments, coronations, religious processions, and even private celebrations such as baptisms, weddings and funerals were occasions for ritual, feasting and public display. This volume takes a comprehensive look at the many types of city spectacles that entertained the masses and confirmed various messages of power in late medieval Europe. Bringing together leading scholars in history, art history, and literature, this interdisciplinary collection aims to set new standards for the study of medieval popular culture. Drawing examples from Spain, England, France, Italy, and the Netherlands, most of them in the 15th century, the authors explore the uses of ceremony as statements of political power, as pleas for divine intercession, and as expressions of popular culture. Their essays show us spectacles meant to confirm events such as victories, the signing of a city charter, the coronation of a king. In other circumstances, the spectacle acted as a battleground where a struggle for the control of the metaphors of power is played out between factions within cities, or between cities and kings. Yet other ceremonies called upon divine spiritual powers in the hope that their intervention might save the urban inhabitants. We see here a public cognizant of the power of symbols to express its goals and achievements, a society reaching the height of sophistication in its manipulation of popular and elite culture for grand shows.

In this volume, twenty-four creators come together with three scholars to discuss Contemporary Circus, bridging the divide between practice and theory. Lavers, Leroux, and Burtt offer conversations across four key themes: Apparatus, Politics, Performers, and New Work. Extensively illustrated with fifty photos of Contemporary Circus productions, and extensively annotated, Contemporary Circus thematically groups and contextualises extracts of conversations to provide a sophisticated and wide-ranging study supported by critical theory. Of interest to both practitioners and scholars, Contemporary Circus uses the lens of 'contestation,' or calling things into question, to provide a portal into ways of seeing today's circus performance. Conversations with: Lachlan Binns and Jascha Boyce (Gravity and Other Myths), Tilde Bjoerfors (Cirkus Cirkoer), Kim 'Busty Beatz' Bowers (Hot Brown Honey), Shana Carroll (The 7 Fingers), David Clarkson (Stalker), Philippe Decoufle (Compagnie DCA), Fez Faanana (Briefs), Mike Finch (Circus Oz), Daniele Finzi Pasca (Compagnia Finzi Pasca), Sean Gandini (Gandini Juggling), Firenza Guidi (ElanFrantoio, NoFit State Circus), Jo Lancaster and Simon Yates (Acrobat), Johann Le Guillerm (Cirque Ici), Yaron Lifschitz (Circa), Chelsea McGuffin (Company 2), Phia Menard (Compagnie Non Nova), Jennifer Miller (Circus Amok), Adrien Mondot (Compagnie Adrien M and Claire B), Charlotte Mooney and Tina Koch (Ockham's Razor), Philippe Petit (high wire artist), and Elizabeth Streb (STREB EXTREME ACTION).

This book shows how Carnival under British colonial rule became a locus of resistance as well as an exercise and affirmation of power. Carnival is both a space of theatricality and a site of politics, where the playful, participatory aspects are appropriated by countervailing forces seeking to influence, control, channel or redirect power. Focusing specifically on the Maltese islands, a tiny European archipelago situated at the heart of the Mediterranean, this work links the contrast between play and power to other Carnival realities across the world. It examines the question of power and identity in relation to different social classes and environments of Carnival play, from streets to ballrooms. It looks at satire and censorship, unbridled gaiety and controlled celebration. It describes the ways Carnival was appropriated as a power channel both by the British and their Maltese subjects, and ultimately how it was manipulated in the struggle for Malta's independence.

In ancient Athens, the Panathenaia was the most important festival and was celebrated in honour of Athena from the middle of the sixth century BC until the end of the fourth century AD. This in-depth study examines how this all-Athenian celebration was an occasion for constructing identities and how it affected those identities. Since not everyone took part in the same way, this differential participation articulated individuals' relationships both to the goddess and to the city so that the festival played an important role in negotiating what it meant to be Athenian (and non-Athenian). Julia Shear applies theories of identity formation which were developed in the social sciences to the ancient Greek material and brings together historical, epigraphical, and archaeological evidence to provide a better understanding both of this important occasion and of Athenian identities over the festival's long history.

Whether you're trying to impress your friends or the girl across the bar, Scam School Academy is the ultimate guide to not impressing everyone around, but getting yourself some free drinks. With over eighty insane tricks, Scam School Graduate is the most advanced magic instruction book created to date. You become the life of the party (or the bar) with amazing tricks, including: The Jack-O-Lantern Stump them for Free Beers Coffee Creamer Flamethrower The Human Blockhead Eat Ball of Fire Be A (Fake) Lie Detector Win Cash at Darts And many more! Not only does Scam School Academy allow you to learn tricks with unprecedented depth, but there are hundreds of photographs to show you step-by-step on how to pull these clever scams off. Imagine the eye-popping surprise on your friend's face when you summon smoke from nowhere or the shock on a girl's face when you read her mind! Imagine knowing that in any bar, in any situation, you can be entertaining enough to spend the whole night drinking for free. That's where Scam School Academy comes in!