Other performing arts Books

Book SynopsisWomen and Comedy: History, Theory, Practice presents the most current international scholarship on the complexity and subversive potential of women’s comedic speech, literature, and performance. Earlier comedy theorists such as Freud and Bergson did not envision women as either the agents or audiences of comedy, only as its targets. Only more recently have scholarly studies of comedy begun to recognize and historicize women’s contributions to—and political uses of—comedy. The essays collected here demonstrate the breadth of current scholarship on gender and comedy, spanning centuries of literature and a diversity of methodologies. Through a reconsideration of literary, theatrical, and mass media texts from the Classical period to the present, Women and Comedy: History, Theory, Practice responds to the historical marginalization and/or trivialization of both women and comedy. The essays collected in this volume assert the importance of recognizing the role of women and comedy in order to understand these texts, their historical contexts, and their possibilities and limits as models for social engagement. In the spirit of comedy itself, these analyses allow for opportunities to challenge and reevaluate the theoretical approaches themselves.Table of ContentsContents Acknowledgments List of Illustrations Preface 000 Regina Barreca Introduction: Dorothy Parker’s Headache Peter Dickinson, Anne Higgins, Paul Matthew St. Pierre, Diana Solomon, Sean Zwagerman Part I: Histories, Politics and Forms Laughing Aphrodite Laurie O’Higgins Comedy in Ancient Greece and Rome: What Was Funny, Whose Humor Was It, and How Do We Explain the Jokes without Killing Them? Barbara Gold Mary and Her Sisters Anne Higgins Feminist Humor without Women: The Challenge of Reading (in) the Middle Ages Lisa Perfetti Laugh, or Forever Hold Your Peace: Comic Crowd Control in Margaret Cavendish’s Dramatic Prologues and Epilogues Diana Solomon Domestic Manners of the Americans: A Transatlantic Phenomenon Linda Morris Part II: Approaches, Texts and Audiences The Business of British Burlesque Jacky Bratton The Comic Bodies and Obscene Voices of Burlesque Joanna Mansbridge Elsie and Doris Waters: Four Songs Paul Matthew St. Pierre “I’m Daphne”: On the Comedy of Cross-Dressing and Metamorphosis in Wilder’s Some Like it Hot, Lubitsch’s I Don’t Want to be a Man, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses Kay Young Biting the Hand that Feeds Her: Patronage and Comedy in Nineteenth-Century Theatre Gilli Bush-Bailey Out of the Box: Comedy in Disability Theater by Canadian Women Kirsty Johnston Part III: Topics, Theories and Practices Humoring the Female Pol: Irony, Consciousness-Raising, and “Third-Culture” Discourse Tarez Samra Graban An American Treasure: The Wit and Wisdom of Ann Coulter A Cautionary Tale: Ann Coulter and the Failure of Humor Sean Zwagerman Lesbian Stand-Up Comics and the Politics of Laughter Joanne Gilbert Layla Siddiqui as Holy Fool in Little Mosque on the Prairie Shannon Hengen Postmodernity and the Gendered Uses of Political Satire Lisa Colletta Coda: Try This at Home Peter Dickinson Bibliography Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisFollowing the first collection of story drama structures, Into the Story 2: More Stories! More Drama! presents a well-argued approach to the value of children’s picture books as a way to look at contemporary issues of social justice while building connections that promote a literacy that is multi-dimensional. Story drama structures offer teachers opportunities for the rich conversations and deep reflections that foster habits of mind critical for life in the twenty-first century. This new volume, piloted internationally over the last decade, will become an invaluable resource for uncovering curricula in ways that are fresh and innovative for students and teachers of all levels.Trade Review'Into the Story 2 delineates the context in which story drama ‘fulfils mandated curriculum, stimulates learning and generates interest and engagement’(Miller and Saxton 2016: 2). Miller and Saxton accomplish this through articulating their current theoretical approach to planning story drama followed by a series of ten story drama lesson plans that can serve either as demonstrations of what this work looks like in context or as practical drama lessons that can be implemented by classroom teachers or other drama practitioners.' -- Jonathan Jones, Journal of Applied Arts & Health'The stories chosen for exploration have a high literary value and are well illustrated, often beautifully so. The narratives are powerful and moving focusing on, for example, age and memory loss, social inequality, poverty, political oppression, the holocaust, and the threat to the environment. In this the work recognises children's ability to respond sensitively to challenging and sometimes disturbing themes and issues. ' -- Andy Kempe, Drama magazineTable of ContentsForeword Acknowledgements Chapter One: Towards a Humanizing Curriculum Chapter Two: And Quick as That Based on The Follower by Richard Thompson Chapter Three: Memories for Miss Nancy Based on Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox Chapter Four: New Boots for Winter Based on Those Shoes by Maribeth Boelts Chapter Five: I’m Too Old for a Trike Now Based on Tricycle by Elisa Amado Chapter Six: Now, Write! Based on The Composition by Antonio Skármeta Chapter Seven: The Wealth of the Sea Based on The Fish Princess by Irene Watts Chapter Eight: Mary Ellery, Traveler in Space Based on a text created by Norah Morgan Chapter Nine: A Piece of Bread Based on Rose Blanche by Roberto Innocenti Chapter Ten: Aqua Pura Based on Beneath the Surface by Gary Crew Chapter Eleven: I Longs for Bloo Skys Based on Woolvs in the Sitee by Margaret Wild Recommended Reading Bibliography Glossary of Drama Strategies Appendix: Making a Story Drama Structure Index

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Book SynopsisJARMAN (all this maddening beauty) and Other Plays is a collection of three radically poetic works for live performance by OBIE award–winning playwright Caridad Svich. The playtexts include a lyrical meditation on the legacy of iconic queer artist Derek Jarman, a meditation on displacement and human suffering (Carthage/Cartagena) and an intimately operatic reflection on Penelope and Odysseus (The Orphan Sea). Accompanied by scholarly essays placing the plays in context, this book showcases the beautiful strangeness and profound resistance in Svich’s work.Trade Review'Caridad Svich is one of the finest poet/playwrights of this generation. By this I don’t just mean she is a poet and a playwright, but she is a playwright whose plays perform like dramatic poems that are wondrous to the ear and moving to the heart. ' -- Seth Gordon, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis'Within these plays, Svich has juxtaposed the magical and the mundane to create passionate collages which, though beautiful and lyrical, have a radical punk intensity. For simmering beneath the poetic of her work flows a palpable anger at the ways of this world. But, though punk and angry, her plays are not nihilistic, they are paeans to hope in hopeless times. Svich is more than a dramatist, she is a force of nature. The plays within this volume, representative of a crux shift in her development as a playwright, are testament to her continuing belief in the power of theatre to affect change in a philistine age.' -- Ian Rowlands, playwright and director'JARMAN (all this maddening beauty) is a sensuous meditation on memory and the transgressive imagination – a poetic encounter fired by the rage and beauty of queerness.' -- Chris Megson, Royal Holloway, University of London'Playwright Caridad Svich's The Orphan Sea is a symphonic journey through time, space, location, memory, love, longing, waiting, and being. Drawing on the ancient myth, Odysseus and Penelope's tale of passion becomes visceral as the play envelops the audience in a current day poetic embrace.' -- M. Heather Carver, Professor of Theatre, University of Missouri-ColumbiaTable of ContentsBeautiful Strangeness: The Plays of Caridad Svich Kevin Brown ‘When I think of him, I think of angels’: Introducing JARMAN (all this maddening beauty) Theron Schmidt Performing JARMAN (all this maddening beauty) John Moletress JARMAN (all this maddening beauty) Caridad Svich Laying Siege to Carthage Pedro de Senna Carthage/Cartagena: when I looked up I looked for something (call it hope) Caridad Svich On the Act of Regarding Another: Some Thoughts on Live Performance, Silence, and Fragility Caridad Svich The Orphan Sea Caridad Svich

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Book SynopsisWidely considered one of the most innovative voices in Hungarian theatre, András Visky has enjoyed growing audiences and increased critical acclaim over the last fifteen years. Nonetheless, his plays have yet to reach a wider English-language audience. This volume, edited by Jozefina Komporaly, begins to correct this by bringing together a translated collection of Visky’s work. The book includes the first English-language anthology of Visky’s best known plays – Juliet, I Killed My Mother, and Porn – as well as critical analysis and an exploration of Visky’s 'Barrack Dramaturgy', a dramaturgical theory in which he considers the theatre as a space for exploring feelings of cultural and personal captivity. Inspired by personal experience of the oppressive communist regime in Romania, Visky’s work explores the themes of gender, justice and trauma, encouraging shared moments of remembrance and collective memory. This collection makes use of scripts and director’s notes, as well as interviews with creative teams behind the productions, to reveal a holistic, insider’s view of Visky’s artistic vision. Scholars and practitioners alike will benefit from this rare, English-language collection of Visky’s work and dramaturgy.Table of Contents‘Each Text is a New Beginning’: Refigurations of History, 3 Remembrance and Liberation in András Visky’s Theatre Jozefina Komporaly Barrack Dramaturgy and the Captive Audience András Visky Introduction to Juliet: Confinement as Embodied Experience in András Visky’s Juliet Jozefina Komporaly Juliet: A Dialogue about Love András Visky Juliet (original title: Júlia): Production History András Visky Juliet in Korea: A Pedagogical Perspective Jeremy D. Knapp Introduction to I Killed My Mother: When and Where I Killed My Mother Karin Coonrod I Killed My Mother András Visky I Killed My Mother (original title: Megöltem az anyámat): Production History András Visky Introduction to Porn: Code Name ‘Porn’: Political Protest and Spiritual 201 Redemption in András Visky’s Theatre Ileana Alexandra Orlich Porn András Visky Porn (original title: Pornó): Production History Ileana Alexandra Orlich Conversation with Melissa Lorraine Jozefina Komporaly ‘Holy Nakedness’: Interview with András Visky Márti Sipos ‘God’s Accountability’: Interview with András Visky Márti Sipos

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Book SynopsisChoreographer Jacky Lansley has been practicing and performing for more than four decades. In Choreographies, she offers unique insight into the processes behind independent choreography and paints a vivid portrait of a rigorous practice that combines dance, performance art, visuals and a close attention to space and site. Choreographies is both autobiography and archive – documenting production through rehearsal and performance photographs, illustrations, scores, process notes, reviews, audience feedback and interviews with both dancers and choreographers. Covering the author’s practice from 1975 to 2019, the book delves into an important period of change in contemporary British dance – exploring British New Dance, postmodern dance and experimental dance outside of a canonical US context. A critically engaged reflection that focuses on artistic process over finished product, Choreographies is a much-needed resource in the fields of dance and choreographic art making.Trade Review'Drawing upon decades of experience and enquiry, Jacky Lansley shares her expanded sense of choreography – or rather, choreographies – as spaces that hold the traces of many areas: other art forms, histories both personal and political, training, processes of research and creation. Lansley has written Choreographies as a kind of “open book” - open to other fields, to varying voices, open to reading.' -- Sanjoy Roy, dance writer (The Guardian)'Jacky Lansley’s significant insights into the working processes of choreographic practices and collaboration are an invaluable contribution to dance, drawing on her rich experience over four decades of working with cross art form strategies as a choreographer and writer.' -- Christy Adair, Professor Emerita, York St John University'Lansley has written about her trajectory as an independent artist over four decades and at last there is some much needed information provided by someone who has been immersed in experimental dance within the UK. Since the early 1970s, when she was a founder of the seminal X6 Dance Space, Lansley has maintained a unique thread of activity rising from that period and continuing for the next generations of artists to relate to. I think of her as someone who has been involved in the questions that have helped to shape dance practice in Britain. Politically and artistically her research and performance have understood the strengths and responsibilities of dance as an art form.' -- Siobhan Davies CBE, choreographer and founder of Siobhan Davies Dance'While it is a remarkable and personal account of a lifetime’s commitment to making work, it also provides a valuable insight into the independent dance sector, in particular the movement known as ‘New Dance’. For dance students seeking to research and understand this point of dance history this is particularly valuable, as it provides not only a historical reference but also a practical link to their choreographic studies and the age-old question ‘How do artists make work’? From this point of view it becomes a very valuable resources for students and lecturers alike to share thoughts on the British dance movement and creative practice.' -- Rosie Lehan, IRIE! Dance Theatre'[...] it is not a book to be read and left to brood on a shelf but should be consulted regularly like a chiropractor. Reminding us that there can be no critical engagement with an art form that does not provoke a critical dialogue, Lansley’s voice makes an eloquent case for a written choreography that can be expressed and read as a counterpoint to the readily accessible product of a gradual shift to social conservatism. Choreographies is a timely call to arms that recognises choreography, in the words of critic and dance historian Laurence Louppe, as one of the most important artistic phenomena of our time.' -- Nicholas Minns, Writing About Dance'In her book, Lansley describes and reflects upon successive works in detail and includes dialogues, interviews with and detailed notes on the performers and collaborators who have worked with her. In doing so, she has created a rich, accessible and engaging panorama of a creative process through which she continues to interrogate and expand just what it is that choreography, “the making of art that disappears” has been for her and could become for us all.' -- Lynn MacRitchie, Artist and arts writer'Copious photos, original notes, diagrams and illustrations round out a wide-ranging and meticulously detailed description of a very individual process and oeuvre, one which may be read for insight into any of the various aspects of dance practice, including an engagement with social concerns.' -- Jane Alexandre, Dance Citizen'[A]n invaluable resource for dance and art historians with its documentation of British New Dance and postmodern dance. Artists of all genres will draw inspiration from the author’s unique process as she details how she builds a concept from start to finish and traces her history through the years as a choreographer, filmmaker, and artist.' -- Susan Haines, Journal of Dance Education'What is refreshing is that Lansley encapsulates interdisciplinary and site-specific performance, and a range of collaborative endeavour with artists she has worked with. Equally, she provides us with historical insights through personal stories, interviews with artists, pictures, journal notes, and all the challenges and tensions of being an experimental dance artist.' -- Evelyn Jamieson, New Theatre Quarterly Book ReviewsTable of ContentsChapter 1: Minimal Dance Jacky Lansley Chapter 2: Dance Object Jacky Lansley Chapter 3: Out of Thin Air Jacky Lansley Chapter 4: Holding Space Jacky Lansley Chapter 5: View from the Shore Jacky Lansley Chapter 6: Standing Stones Jacky Lansley Chapter 7: Researching Guests Jacky Lansley Chapter 8: Guest Suites Jacky Lansley Chapter 9: Other Voices Jacky Lansley

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Book SynopsisBringing together a range of perspectives to examine the full impact of political, socio-economic or psychological experiences of exile, Performing Exile: Foreign Bodies presents an inclusive mix of voices from varied cultural and geographic affiliations. The collected essays in this book focus on live performances that were inspired by living in exile. Chapters blend close critical analysis and ethnography to document and interrogate performances and the contexts that inform them. In a world where exiled populations continue to grow, the role of art to document and engage with these experiences will continue to be essential, and this diverse book offers an important model for understanding the rich body of work being created today. A PDF version of this book is available for free in open access via the OAPEN Library platform, Performing Exile. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License and is part of Knowledge Unlatched.Trade ReviewAnyone interested in exilic performance will be enriched, educated and entertained. [...] This manuscript makes a significant contribution to the scholarship on immigrant, multicultural and exilic performance. -- Cynthia Ashperger, School of Performance, Ryerson UniversityTable of ContentsI. Introduction II. A Theoretical Primer on Exile: On the Paradigms of Banishment, Displacement, and Free Choice III. The Essays Chapter 1: Theatre, Reconciliation, and the American Dream in Greater Cuba Chapter 2: Three Angry Australians: A Reflexive Approach Chapter 3: Exilic Solo Performances: Staging Body in a Movement/Logos Continuum Chapter 4: Foreign Bodies in the Performance Art of Jorge Rojas: Cultural Encounters from Ritual to Satire Chapter 5: Lingering Cultural Memory and Hyphenated Exile Chapter 6: Carrying My Grandmother’s Drum: Dancing the Home Within Chapter 7: Blood Red: Rebecca Belmore’s Vigil of Exile Chapter 8: Yaffa Mish Yaffa (Yaffa Is No Longer Yaffa) From Diaspora to Homeland: Returning to Yaffa by Boat Chapter 9: Belonging and Absence: Resisting the Division Chapter 10: Caryatid Unplugged: A Cabaret on Performing and Negotiating Belonging and Otherness in Exile Chapter 11: Exile Builds Performance: A Critical Analysis of Performing Satirical Images across Cultures through Media Chapter 12: Resignifying Multilingualism in Accented Canadian Theatre

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Book Synopsis Situated at the crossroads of performance practice, museology, and cultural studies, live arts curation has grown in recent years to become a vibrant interdisciplinary project and a genuine global phenomenon. Curating Live Arts brings together bold and innovative essays from an international group of theorist-practitioners to pose vital questions, propose future visions, and survey the landscape of this rapidly evolving discipline. Reflecting the field’s characteristic eclecticism, the writings assembled here offer practical and insightful investigations into the curation of theatre, dance, sound art, music, and other performance forms—not only in museums, but in community, site-specific, and time-based contexts, placing it at the forefront of contemporary dialogue and discourse.Trade Review “The volume appears as an assemblage that is not immediately easy to approach, but precisely because of that, it is an extremely interesting polyphony that can illuminate our understanding of what we are talking about when we talk about curation today.” • JRAI “[This book] provides momentum for the evolution of research in the curation of performance, performing arts, theatre, music, and other media included in the live arts.” • ESSE (European Journal for the Study of English) “Anyone interested in the significance, purpose, or agenda of curating and curators in performing arts should read this book. The curators promoted here are not rock stars, they don’t wear expensive designer clothing or hang out with celebrities, but they are deeply committed to their work, to the artists they work with, and to the communities they serve.” • thINKingDANCE “The outstanding group of researchers in this innovative book engage in a lucid flow of passion and creative power. Its narratives are drawn from experimental approaches grounded in their authors’ rich lives. This anthology is comprised of unexpected revelations about curation that break the barriers of its canonic definitions, while remaining concerned with Beauty as a fundamental value and the live arts as a celebration of living.” • Alma Salem, independent curator, Syria Sixth Space “This is a rich, global compilation of pieces that explore issues of power, community, inclusiveness, belonging, aesthetics, history, embodiment, epistemology, and pedagogy, all within the context of performance and the live arts.” • Nicole Stanton, Wesleyan University “In seeking to reinvigorate one of the art world’s most ubiquitous terms, Curating Live Arts both interrogates and celebrates the historical in tandem with new possibilities for intervention into the complex space between artists, arts workers, art projects, participants and audiences. It asks critical questions about the values, the sensibilities, and the preoccupations of curating the live arts, and includes writing from artists, curators, and activists working in politically urgent contexts far removed from the centres of ‘high’ art. This wide-ranging anthology makes an invaluable contribution to the complex aspirations of this ever-expanding field.” • Sarah Miller, University of WollongongTable of Contents List of illustrations Prologue: Bethinking One’s Own Strengths: The Performative Potential of Curating Florian Malzacher Acknowledgments A Collective Introduction Dena Davida, Jane Gabriels, Véronique Hudon, and Marc Pronovost A NOTE ON CURATORIAL STATEMENTS—A THIRD SPACE: CHASING THE INTANGIBLE Michèle Steinwald and Michael Trent PART I: HISTORICAL FRAMINGS Chapter 1. From Context to Concept: The Emergence of the Performance Curator Bertie Ferdman CURIOSITY AND INTUITION Marie Claire Forté Chapter 2. Exhibiting Performances: Process and Valorisation in When Attitudes Become Forms—Bern 1969 / Venice 2013 Beatrice von Bismarck Chapter 3. Can We Curate Dance without Making a Festival?: On Dance Curatorship and Its Shifting Borders Elisa Ricci Chapter 4. Curating Performance from Africa for International Stages: Thoughts on Artistic Categories and Critical Discourse ‘Funmi Adewole with Jareh Das UNTITLED Isabel Sachs Chapter 5. The Curating Nation: Emergence of Performance Curation in Singapore and Its Impact on Cultural Politics Ken Takiguchi Chapter 6. The Curatorial Chronotope Peter Dickinson LAYERS Harun Morrison Chapter 7. More Weirdness, More Joy: Performance Curation and Pedagogy at Danspace Project and the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance Judy Hussie-Taylor PART II: ETHICAL PROPOSALS Chapter 8. Dancing the Museum Thomas F. DeFrantz Chapter 9. Curatorial Discourse and Equity: Tensions in Contemporary Dance Presenting in the United States Naomi Jackson HOLY MOTOR—A MECHANICAL METAPHOR SURROUNDING THE LIVE ARTS CURATOR Cécile Tonizzo Chapter 10. Noticing the Feedback: A Proposal to the Contemporary Dance Field, and/ or This Revolution Will Be Crowdsourced Michèle Steinwald Chapter 11. Email to a Curator: An Introduction to The Curator’s Piece Tea Tupajić & Petra Zanki CURATING LIVENESS Victoria Mohr-Blakeney Chapter 12. Curation as a Form of Artistic Practice: Context as a New Work through UK-based Forest Fringe Deborah Pearson PART III: THE ARTIST-CURATORS Chapter 13. The Artist-Curator, or the Philosophy of ‘Do-It-Yourself’ Julie Bawin "SOFT CURATION," POLLINATION, AND RHIZOMES Yves Sheriff Chapter 14. Being in Vanguard of Sensibility: Artists as Curators in Performing Arts—A Study of Collective Affect Kasia Tórz Chapter 15. Familias: Artist-Activist Curation in the South Bronx, New York Jane Gabriels Chapter 16. What We Talk About When We Talk About Curating the ‘Unexpected’ Syreeta McFadden GREATER THAN Shoshona Currier Chapter 17. Because I love Art, I Want Art to be Different. The Project Perverse Curating and a Few Things I’ve Learned From It Jacob Wren Chapter 18. Making Stage: Contemporary Dance and Performance Curation in the Caribbean Makeda Thomas AS WE Nadège Grebmeier Forget Chapter 19. The Work of the Musician-Curator and the Notion of the "Concert Scenario" Marie-Hélène Breault Chapter 20. Pseudo-, Anti-, and Total Dance: A Self-Interview on Curation SALTA Chapter 21. Collective Creation and Improvised Curation: A Discussion with Body Slam Body Slam Dance Improv Collective: Gregory Selinger, Helen Simard, Roger White, Xavier Laporte, Victoria Mackenzie, and Claudia Chan Tak PART IV: EXHIBITIONS AS EVENTS Chapter 22. A New Kind of Critical Elsewhere Travis Chamberlain Chapter 23. Re-enact History? Performing the Archive! Julia Kurz Chapter 24. Choreographing Archives, Curating Choreographers: Yvonne Rainer, Xavier Le Roy, and the Dance Retrospective Fabien Maltais-Bayda and Joseph Henry THE TITLE AS THE CURATOR'S ART PIECE Steve Giasson Chapter 25. Exhibiting Dance, Performing Objects: Cultural Mediation in the Museum Erin Joelle McCurdy Chapter 26. The Curator’s Work: Stories and Experiences of Tino Sehgal’s Events Véronique Hudon PART V: ARTIVISM Chapter 27. Framing a Network, Charting Dis/Courses: Performance Curation, Community Work, and the Logic/Anxieties of an Emerging Field Roselle Pineda CURATE Natalie Doonan Chapter 28. Food=Need: Constraints, Reflexivity, and Community Performance Pam Patterson Chapter 29. ARC.HIVE of Contemporary Arab Performing Arts: Memory, Catastrophe, Resistance and Oblivion Adham Hafez Chapter 30. Collective Walks / Spaces of Contestation: Site-Specificity, Community Involvement, and Mobility Employed as Curatorial Strategies in the Creation of Participatory Performances Mariane Bourcheix-Laporte Chapter 31. Sound Citizen: Curating Sound Art in the Distributed Public Sphere Morten Søndergaard CURATION AS A PRACTICE OF RADICAL CARE: A DEFINITION Nicole L. Martin PART VI: INSTITUTIONAL REINVENTIONS Chapter 32. Rethinking the Role of Institutions and Curators in a New Interdisciplinary Age Philip Bither Chapter 33. The Curator as a Culture Producer Marta Keil DEFINITION OF CURATION SALTA Chapter 34. How to Build a Manifesto for the Future of a Festival “Festivals as Thinking Entities,” a Conversation with Judith Blackenberg, Daniel Blanga-Gubbay, Silvia Bottiroli, Livia Andrea Piazza, initiated by Silvia Bottiroli and Berno Odo Polzer Silvia Bottiroli Chapter 35. The Curatorial Gesture as a Decolonial Gesture Arnaldo Rodriguez Bagué PROPOSING INTERVALS—CURATING AS CHOREOGRAPHY Gabriele Brandstetter Chapter 36. Are You Not Entertained?: Curating Performance within the Institution Rie Hovmann Rasmussen Chapter 37. Bodies in Museums: Institutional Practices and Politics Véronique Hudon with Boris Charmatz CURATING HISTORY, CURATING RESISTANCE Jaamil Kosoko Chapter 38. What Can Contemporary Art Perform? And Then Transgress? Emelie Chhangur Epilogue: Situation Critical: What Comes Next for the Field of Performance Curation? Tom Sellar THE PARABLE OF THE CURATOR Michel Herreria (drawing) and Jean-Paul Rathier (text) Index

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Book SynopsisThroughout history, comedians and clowns have enjoyed a certain freedom to speak frankly often denied to others in hegemonic systems. More recently, professional comedians have developed platforms of comic license from which to critique the traditional political establishment and have managed to play an important role in interrogating and mediating the processes of politics in contemporary society. This collection will examine the questions that arise when of comedy and critique intersect by bringing together both critical theorists and comedy scholars with a view to exploring the nature of comedy, its potential role in critical theory and the forms it can take as a practice of resistance.Trade ReviewThis fascinating book draws on current and recent critical theories to frame and contextualise individual chapters on - amongst others - satire, stand-up, cartoons, slapstick and the visual arts. The theories are clearly explained, often emphasising the playful uses of humour and comedy as a critical tool. Reading it has opened up new avenues in my own thinking about comedy. -- Dr. Richard Cuming, Clown Advisor and Senior Lecturer in Performing Arts, University of WinchesterThis rich, varied collection opens up new ways of thinking about the critical force of humour. Situated at a surprising place where theory and philosophy, politics and comedy, critique and resistance all meet, it combines sophisticated conceptual reflections with insightful case-studies drawn from stand-up, cartoons, performance art, literature and more. Fascinating, intriguing, and amusing it sets an agenda for activist theorists and practitioners across the disciplines. -- Alan Finlayson, Professor of Political and Social Theory, University of East AngliaTable of ContentsIntroduction: Setting the Agenda, Krista Bonello Rutter Giappone, Fred Francis and Iain MacKenzie / PART I: COMEDY, CRITIQUE AND RESISTANCE / Diagrams of Comic Estrangement, James Williams / ‘Against the Assault of Laughter’: Differentiating Critical and Resistant Humour, Nicholas Holm / Can We Learn the Truth from Lenny Bruce? A Careful Cognitivism about Satire, Dieter Declercq / Laughter, Liturgy, Lacan and Resistance to Capitalist Logic, Francis Stewart / Humitas: Humour as Performative Resistance, Kate Fox / PART II: LAUGHTER AS RESISTANCE? / Conformist Comedians: Political Humour in the Eighteenth-Century Dutch Republic, Ivo Nieuwenhuis / First World War Cartoon Comedy as Criticism of British Politics and Society, Pip Gregory / A Suspended Pratfall: Mimesis and Slapstick in Contemporary Art, Levi Hanes / ‘Life’ in Struggle: The Indifferent Humour of Beckett’s Prose Heroes, Selvin Yaltir / ‘Holiday in Cambodia’: Punk’s Acerbic Comedy, Russ Bestley / ‘What Can’t Be Cured Must Be Endured’: The Postcolonial Humour of Salman Rushdie, Sami Shah and Hari Kondabolu, Christine Caruana / Political Jester: From Fool to King 201, Constantino Pereira Martins / Three Easy Steps to a New You? Or, Some Thoughts on the Politics of Humour in the Workplace . . ., Adrian Hickey, Giuliana Monteverde and Robert Porter

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Book SynopsisThroughout history, comedians and clowns have enjoyed a certain freedom to speak frankly often denied to others in hegemonic systems. More recently, professional comedians have developed platforms of comic license from which to critique the traditional political establishment and have managed to play an important role in interrogating and mediating the processes of politics in contemporary society. This collection will examine the questions that arise when of comedy and critique intersect by bringing together both critical theorists and comedy scholars with a view to exploring the nature of comedy, its potential role in critical theory and the forms it can take as a practice of resistance.Trade ReviewThis fascinating book draws on current and recent critical theories to frame and contextualise individual chapters on - amongst others - satire, stand-up, cartoons, slapstick and the visual arts. The theories are clearly explained, often emphasising the playful uses of humour and comedy as a critical tool. Reading it has opened up new avenues in my own thinking about comedy. -- Dr. Richard Cuming, Clown Advisor and Senior Lecturer in Performing Arts, University of WinchesterThis rich, varied collection opens up new ways of thinking about the critical force of humour. Situated at a surprising place where theory and philosophy, politics and comedy, critique and resistance all meet, it combines sophisticated conceptual reflections with insightful case-studies drawn from stand-up, cartoons, performance art, literature and more. Fascinating, intriguing, and amusing it sets an agenda for activist theorists and practitioners across the disciplines. -- Alan Finlayson, Professor of Political and Social Theory, University of East AngliaTable of ContentsIntroduction: Setting the Agenda, Krista Bonello Rutter Giappone, Fred Francis, Iain MacKenzie/ Part I: Comedy and/as Critique / 1. Jolt, flash, tinge, ooze: process philosophy and the dynamics of critical comedy, James Williams / 2. "Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand", Nicholas Holm / 3. Comedy and Resistance, Robert Porter / 4. Redemption Through Laughter? The Critical Potential of the Joke in Ernst Bloch's Traces, Piotr Sawczyński / 5. A liturgical comedy of resistance and a comic liturgy of transformation, Francis Stewart / Part II: Laughter as Resistance / 6. Humitas: A new word for How to Do Things With Humour, Kate Fox / 7. Conformist Comedians: Dutch Political Humour, Ivo Nieuwenhuis / 8. Cartoon Comedy as Criticism of Society, Pip Gregory / 9. Comedic Agency and Contemporary Art Practice, Levi Hanes / 10. Beckett's Invented Ambiguity: Indifference and Laughter, Selvin Yaltir / 11. Comedy and Humour within the Punk Subculture, Russ Bestley / 12. Tiririca, the clown: a true story,Constantino Pereira Martins

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Book SynopsisRestaging the Past is the first edited collection devoted to the study of pageants in Britain, ranging from its Edwardian origins to the present day. The volume highlights pageants as a key aspect of community history during a period of great social and political change.

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Book Synopsis Situated at the crossroads of performance practice, museology, and cultural studies, live arts curation has grown in recent years to become a vibrant interdisciplinary project and a genuine global phenomenon. Curating Live Arts brings together bold and innovative essays from an international group of theorist-practitioners to pose vital questions, propose future visions, and survey the landscape of this rapidly evolving discipline. Reflecting the field’s characteristic eclecticism, the writings assembled here offer practical and insightful investigations into the curation of theatre, dance, sound art, music, and other performance forms—not only in museums, but in community, site-specific, and time-based contexts, placing it at the forefront of contemporary dialogue and discourse.Trade Review “The volume appears as an assemblage that is not immediately easy to approach, but precisely because of that, it is an extremely interesting polyphony that can illuminate our understanding of what we are talking about when we talk about curation today.” • JRAI “[This book] provides momentum for the evolution of research in the curation of performance, performing arts, theatre, music, and other media included in the live arts.” • ESSE (European Journal for the Study of English) “Anyone interested in the significance, purpose, or agenda of curating and curators in performing arts should read this book. The curators promoted here are not rock stars, they don’t wear expensive designer clothing or hang out with celebrities, but they are deeply committed to their work, to the artists they work with, and to the communities they serve.” • thINKingDANCE “The outstanding group of researchers in this innovative book engage in a lucid flow of passion and creative power. Its narratives are drawn from experimental approaches grounded in their authors’ rich lives. This anthology is comprised of unexpected revelations about curation that break the barriers of its canonic definitions, while remaining concerned with Beauty as a fundamental value and the live arts as a celebration of living.” • Alma Salem, independent curator, Syria Sixth Space “This is a rich, global compilation of pieces that explore issues of power, community, inclusiveness, belonging, aesthetics, history, embodiment, epistemology, and pedagogy, all within the context of performance and the live arts.” • Nicole Stanton, Wesleyan University “In seeking to reinvigorate one of the art world’s most ubiquitous terms, Curating Live Arts both interrogates and celebrates the historical in tandem with new possibilities for intervention into the complex space between artists, arts workers, art projects, participants and audiences. It asks critical questions about the values, the sensibilities, and the preoccupations of curating the live arts, and includes writing from artists, curators, and activists working in politically urgent contexts far removed from the centres of ‘high’ art. This wide-ranging anthology makes an invaluable contribution to the complex aspirations of this ever-expanding field.” • Sarah Miller, University of WollongongTable of Contents List of illustrations Prologue: Bethinking One’s Own Strengths: The Performative Potential of Curating Florian Malzacher Acknowledgments A Collective Introduction Dena Davida, Jane Gabriels, Véronique Hudon, and Marc Pronovost A NOTE ON CURATORIAL STATEMENTS—A THIRD SPACE: CHASING THE INTANGIBLE Michèle Steinwald and Michael Trent PART I: HISTORICAL FRAMINGS Chapter 1. From Context to Concept: The Emergence of the Performance Curator Bertie Ferdman CURIOSITY AND INTUITION Marie Claire Forté Chapter 2. Exhibiting Performances: Process and Valorisation in When Attitudes Become Forms—Bern 1969 / Venice 2013 Beatrice von Bismarck Chapter 3. Can We Curate Dance without Making a Festival?: On Dance Curatorship and Its Shifting Borders Elisa Ricci Chapter 4. Curating Performance from Africa for International Stages: Thoughts on Artistic Categories and Critical Discourse ‘Funmi Adewole with Jareh Das UNTITLED Isabel Sachs Chapter 5. The Curating Nation: Emergence of Performance Curation in Singapore and Its Impact on Cultural Politics Ken Takiguchi Chapter 6. The Curatorial Chronotope Peter Dickinson LAYERS Harun Morrison Chapter 7. More Weirdness, More Joy: Performance Curation and Pedagogy at Danspace Project and the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance Judy Hussie-Taylor PART II: ETHICAL PROPOSALS Chapter 8. Dancing the Museum Thomas F. DeFrantz Chapter 9. Curatorial Discourse and Equity: Tensions in Contemporary Dance Presenting in the United States Naomi Jackson HOLY MOTOR—A MECHANICAL METAPHOR SURROUNDING THE LIVE ARTS CURATOR Cécile Tonizzo Chapter 10. Noticing the Feedback: A Proposal to the Contemporary Dance Field, and/ or This Revolution Will Be Crowdsourced Michèle Steinwald Chapter 11. Email to a Curator: An Introduction to The Curator’s Piece Tea Tupajić & Petra Zanki CURATING LIVENESS Victoria Mohr-Blakeney Chapter 12. Curation as a Form of Artistic Practice: Context as a New Work through UK-based Forest Fringe Deborah Pearson PART III: THE ARTIST-CURATORS Chapter 13. The Artist-Curator, or the Philosophy of ‘Do-It-Yourself’ Julie Bawin "SOFT CURATION," POLLINATION, AND RHIZOMES Yves Sheriff Chapter 14. Being in Vanguard of Sensibility: Artists as Curators in Performing Arts—A Study of Collective Affect Kasia Tórz Chapter 15. Familias: Artist-Activist Curation in the South Bronx, New York Jane Gabriels Chapter 16. What We Talk About When We Talk About Curating the ‘Unexpected’ Syreeta McFadden GREATER THAN Shoshona Currier Chapter 17. Because I love Art, I Want Art to be Different. The Project Perverse Curating and a Few Things I’ve Learned From It Jacob Wren Chapter 18. Making Stage: Contemporary Dance and Performance Curation in the Caribbean Makeda Thomas AS WE Nadège Grebmeier Forget Chapter 19. The Work of the Musician-Curator and the Notion of the "Concert Scenario" Marie-Hélène Breault Chapter 20. Pseudo-, Anti-, and Total Dance: A Self-Interview on Curation SALTA Chapter 21. Collective Creation and Improvised Curation: A Discussion with Body Slam Body Slam Dance Improv Collective: Gregory Selinger, Helen Simard, Roger White, Xavier Laporte, Victoria Mackenzie, and Claudia Chan Tak PART IV: EXHIBITIONS AS EVENTS Chapter 22. A New Kind of Critical Elsewhere Travis Chamberlain Chapter 23. Re-enact History? Performing the Archive! Julia Kurz Chapter 24. Choreographing Archives, Curating Choreographers: Yvonne Rainer, Xavier Le Roy, and the Dance Retrospective Fabien Maltais-Bayda and Joseph Henry THE TITLE AS THE CURATOR'S ART PIECE Steve Giasson Chapter 25. Exhibiting Dance, Performing Objects: Cultural Mediation in the Museum Erin Joelle McCurdy Chapter 26. The Curator’s Work: Stories and Experiences of Tino Sehgal’s Events Véronique Hudon PART V: ARTIVISM Chapter 27. Framing a Network, Charting Dis/Courses: Performance Curation, Community Work, and the Logic/Anxieties of an Emerging Field Roselle Pineda CURATE Natalie Doonan Chapter 28. Food=Need: Constraints, Reflexivity, and Community Performance Pam Patterson Chapter 29. ARC.HIVE of Contemporary Arab Performing Arts: Memory, Catastrophe, Resistance and Oblivion Adham Hafez Chapter 30. Collective Walks / Spaces of Contestation: Site-Specificity, Community Involvement, and Mobility Employed as Curatorial Strategies in the Creation of Participatory Performances Mariane Bourcheix-Laporte Chapter 31. Sound Citizen: Curating Sound Art in the Distributed Public Sphere Morten Søndergaard CURATION AS A PRACTICE OF RADICAL CARE: A DEFINITION Nicole L. Martin PART VI: INSTITUTIONAL REINVENTIONS Chapter 32. Rethinking the Role of Institutions and Curators in a New Interdisciplinary Age Philip Bither Chapter 33. The Curator as a Culture Producer Marta Keil DEFINITION OF CURATION SALTA Chapter 34. How to Build a Manifesto for the Future of a Festival “Festivals as Thinking Entities,” a Conversation with Judith Blackenberg, Daniel Blanga-Gubbay, Silvia Bottiroli, Livia Andrea Piazza, initiated by Silvia Bottiroli and Berno Odo Polzer Silvia Bottiroli Chapter 35. The Curatorial Gesture as a Decolonial Gesture Arnaldo Rodriguez Bagué PROPOSING INTERVALS—CURATING AS CHOREOGRAPHY Gabriele Brandstetter Chapter 36. Are You Not Entertained?: Curating Performance within the Institution Rie Hovmann Rasmussen Chapter 37. Bodies in Museums: Institutional Practices and Politics Véronique Hudon with Boris Charmatz CURATING HISTORY, CURATING RESISTANCE Jaamil Kosoko Chapter 38. What Can Contemporary Art Perform? And Then Transgress? Emelie Chhangur Epilogue: Situation Critical: What Comes Next for the Field of Performance Curation? Tom Sellar THE PARABLE OF THE CURATOR Michel Herreria (drawing) and Jean-Paul Rathier (text) Index

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Book SynopsisThis is a collection of works by internationally recognized women leading the field of dance research and spirituality across the globe. Building on current soulful research scholarship in the discipline, these authors offer extensive and detailed research into spirituality, dance, gender, religion, somatics and women-centred dance research. Written by women dance scholars in higher education, this evocative and illuminating work highlights a growing discourse on gendered leadership in dance research. Spiritual Herstories provides new pathways and innovative research methods that respond to the educational needs of women emerging in male-centric socio-historic research traditions.Trade Review'This is an important publication for advancing research in dance and reinforcing the scholarly lens, giving voice to the body, mind, and soul as partners in exploration. The preface, “Dancing Incantations” by Celeste Snowber, beautifully sets up the reader’s adventure: “Be prepared to let this anthology sit with you for a long time. Each chapter stands alone in its beauty, depth and breadth of knowledge; it is truly a transdisciplinary conversation, which draws you back over and over again to nourish your whole being” (ix).' -- Adrienne M. Wilson, Journal of Dance Education'[The] many facets of this transdisciplinary and intersectional collection are also marked by a great variety of perspectives and backgrounds of the authors, which allows this volume to become a celebration of diversity and interdisciplinarity. As such, Spiritual Herstories offers a kaleidoscope of experiences that shed light on embodied understandings and sensuous research whilst illuminating both academic insights and ‘bodysights’. This book speaks to calls for writing differently and the writing of narratives centred around the body to explore the ‘bodiliness’ and emotions of academic work and writing (Essén and Värlander, 2012). This type of writing renders embodied research a feminist project in its explorations against the grain of masculine hegemonic practices in academic scholarship (Boncori and Smith, 2019). [...] These contributions, pollinated by photographs and changes to the text in terms of form, register and tone, are joyful and inspiring, even when addressing marginalisation and limits imposed by patriarchal structures. The reader is ‘moved’ both through an intellectual dance across interdisciplinary perspectives, and via narratives that value affect, embodiment and personal herstories. The narratives, experiments and explorations presented in the chapters are an invitation to seek embodiment and spirituality away from distinctions between psyche and soma, in an attempt to free creativity, knowledge and the sense from unnecessary inhibitions. More importantly, this edited book advocates the importance of daring to step away from traditional ‘scientific’ research in pursue of scholarship that highlights the value and centrality of affect, intuition, embodiment and spirituality in the processes of research development and knowledge creation.' -- Ilaria Boncori, Journal of Management, Spirituality & ReligionTable of ContentsPreface: Dancing Incantations – Celeste Snowber Introduction – Amanda Williamson and Barbara Sellers-Young Part One: Patriarchal Critique and Spiritual Feminist Perspectives – Amanda Williamson 1: Woman, body, earth and spirit – Linda Hartley 2: Informed by the Goddess – Jane Bacon 3: Until The Lions – Jayne Stevens 4: Symbols of the Goddess in Balkan Women’s Dance – Laura Shannon 5: Spirals and circles – Amanda Williamson 6: Soul loss and retrieval – Eline Kieft 7: Reclaiming our innate vitality – Caroline Frizell Part Two: Somatic Ethnography, Diasporic Spiritualities and Postcolonial Voices – Barbara Sellers-Young 8: Dancing bodies and ritual spaces – Yvonne Daniel 9: ‘Niimikaage’ into the twenty-first century – Sandra Laronde and Elaine Keillor 10: Unearthing the presence of African women dancers in Nyanza province, 1900–40 – Seonagh Kummer 11: Love Poems to God – Veta Goler 12: Dancing the Four Directions – Rosalie Jones 13: Souls, soil and soma – Ojeya Cruz Banks and Miriam Marler 14: Dancing through myself – Barbara Sellers-Young Part Three: Spiritual Journeys in Dance Research – Amanda Williamson and Barbara Sellers-Young 15: Writing Why We Dance – Kimerer L. LaMothe 16: Mystery, magic and the mundane – Celeste Snowber 17: Creativity as medicine – Janet Lynn Roseman 18: Dancing evolutionary spirituality – Cheryl Pallant 19: Attunement and evanescence – Sondra Fraleigh 20: Awakening the spirit through dance, somatics and Scaravelli Yoga – Sara Reed 21: Spirituality in Aurelia Baumgartner’s Tanzphilosophie – Aurelia Baumgartner and Daniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe

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Book Synopsis"People's Pornography" offers an unprecedented investigation of pornography and activist media cultures on the Chinese internet. The book will give a wide-ranging overview of Chinese porn cultures and political controversies, which are gaining popularity amongst Chinese web users yet are different from their Western counterparts. By looking at new tendencies in pornography, erotic subcultures, and digital citizenship, the book will offer a timely contribution to studies of Chinese media, internet culture, sexuality and surveillance society. The book benefits from many black and white images as examples.Trade Review'Jacobs doesn’t underestimate the intelligence of her subjects or her audience, and while her book strikes a positive note both at the beginning and at the end, the numerous examples throughout show us that sexual expression in China is in a constant state of conflict between individual and collective desires and the ever-present and increasingly noisy demands of capital'. -- Subashini Navaratnam, Pop Matters'Jacobs' book has a lot more interesting things to tell though. As she says “It shows that despite the total ban on pornography, Chinese people have developed an impressive porn industry and progressive sex cultures"'. -- Maria Manoli, gb times'A comprehensive documentation of the various forms of pornography and creative resistance to state censorship and social control in China'. -- Lucetta Yip Lo Kam, China Information'The seriousness and conviction Jacobs demonstrates in this work also deserves not only praise but a willingness to critique it'. -- Earl Jackson, The China ReviewTable of ContentsChapter 1: The Cyber Yellow Disaster: From the Everyday Gaze to Nation-State Espionage Chapter 2: The Pride and Pettiness of Sex Bloggers Chapter 3: Gender Variations on the Aching Sex Scene: Young Adult Fe/Male Responses to Explicit Media and Internet Culture Chapter 4: Lizzy Kinsey and the Adult FriendFinders: An Ethnographic Case Study about Internet Sex and Pornographic Self-Display in Hong Kong Chapter 5: It Runs in the Rotten Family: Queer Love Amongst Animation Fans and Costume Players

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Book SynopsisThis volume of Who’s Who in Research series offers a useful guide for current researchers in Intellect’s subject area of Visual Arts. The directory holds the names, institutions, biographies and current research interests of hundreds of leading international academics as well as references to the researchers’ principal articles in Intellect journals.

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Book SynopsisCircuses provide surreal, fantastic entertainment. At times magical and at others chilling, the circus is a world of fantasy and spectacle for the viewer, but for the performer, a career in the circus often brings with it a nomadic, lonely life. In "Circus Girl", photographer Saibal Das captures beautiful and unusual images of circus girls, photographs which evoke this sense of darkness and resignation that underlies the otherworldly feats they perform under the big top. For instance, in one photograph, a circus girl whose act involves a lioness is seen sitting in front of a mirror putting on her makeup. The lioness that she usually whips in the ring stands behind her, her paw touching the girl's shoulder affectionately. But both wear a solemn look. In another, the girl sits on her props, staring silently at the snack packets strewn on the ground. The giant marquee is empty. Internationally renowned mime artist Nola Rae provides a haunting accompanying text that poetically comments on the transient wanderings of the circus performers who often yearn for a conventional family life while donning their costumes and taking hold of the trapeze. Rae gives voice to the circus girls, articulating the thoughts too often hidden by the brilliant illusion of stage lights.

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Book SynopsisMarlon Griffith: Symbols of Endurance covers the recent artistic practice of Trinidadian-born artist Marlon Griffith, whose work derives its form (and to an extent its process) from the performative, participatory and ephemeral characteristics that derive from the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival.

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Book SynopsisFeatured in the New York Times 2017 "Holiday Gift Guide for Hardcover Fans" Get an insider's oral history of the World's most iconic comedy club, featuring exclusive interviews with today's most hilarious stars recalling their time on stage (and off) at the Improv. In 1963, 30-year-old Budd Friedman—who had recently quit his job as a Boston advertising executive and returned to New York to become a theatrical producer—opened a coffee house for Broadway performers called the Improvisation. Later shortened to the Improv, its first seedy West 44th Street location initially attracted the likes of Judy Garland, Liza Minnelli, Albert Finney, and Jason Robards, as well as a couple of then-unknowns named Dustin Hoffman and Bette Midler. While it drew near-capacity crowds almost from day one, it wasn't until comedians began dropping by to try out new material that the Improv truly hit its stride. The club became the first venue to present live stand-up in a continuous format, and in the process reinvented the art form and created the template for all other comedy clubs that followed. From the microphone to the iconic brick wall, the Improv has been the launching pad for practically every major name in American comedy over the last five-plus decades. Now, in The Improv, Friedman, along with a Who's Who of his most famous alumni—including Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld, Jimmy Fallon, Larry David, Billy Crystal, Lily Tomlin, Judd Apatow, Al Franken, Paul Reiser, Howie Mandel, Bob Saget, Drew Carey, and many more—tell it like it was in the first-ever oral history of how this game-changing comedy club came to be. The Improv gives readers an exclusive look at what really happened onstage and off-mic at one of America's most venerable institutions.Trade Review "The Improv was a cauldron of talent. Whetsell writes about it wonderfully and with respect for its importance to comedy."—Robert Klein "They used to say that if you made it New York you could make it anywhere. Maybe so, but if you didn't make it at the Improv, it was time to pack your bags and move to ‘anywhere.'"—Richard Lewis "This book is a great walk down memory lane for me. All hail the Improv and all the laugh-filled times and wonderful nights that happened in front of those brick walls."—Bill Maher "The Improv played a vital part in my early stand-up days as it did in the careers of the dazzling array of stars, eccentrics, and colorful characters whose stories adorn this bright and greatly entertaining book. Get at least two copies, in case you lose one."—Dick Cavett "Here's a book I'll probably never finish, because for years to come I'll be picking it up again and again and rereading parts over and over, whenever I need perking up. It's the history of an art form, though that sounds way too stuffy, and of an institution—the great American comedy club, especially the Improvs of New York and LA."—Tom Shales, Pulitzer Prize–winning former television critic for The Washington Post and #1 bestselling coauthor of Live from New York and These Guys Have All the Fun "An entertaining ride through the glory years—the people, the stories, the feuds, the laughs—of the club that started the stand-up comedy boom in America."—Richard Zoglin, author of Hope: Entertainer of the Century and Comedy at the Edge: How Comedy in the 1970s Changed America "The Godfather of the comedy club is finally called to testify . . . and he sings like a canary."—Bill Knoedelsder, author of I'm Dying Up Here: Heartbreak and High-Times in Stand-Up Comedy's Golden EraTable of Contents Foreword by Jay Leno Prologue Introduction Part One Growing Up Fatherless and Struggling to Find My Way Broadway Bound and the Unexpected Detour Building the House That Hilarity Built Flying by the Seat of My Pants The Improv Gets Hot A Future Film Legend Wanders into West 44th Street and I Nearly Produce My First Show The Singing Waitresses Liza Minelli and Judy Garland . . . Onstage at the Improv Not So Blown Away by Bette Midler . . . at First Comedians Start Coming to the Improv The Anointment of King Richard Part Two Revelry and Rivalry Stiller and Meara More Momentum, My Monocle—and Lily Tomlin’s Grand Entrance The One and Only Rodney Dangerfield Robert Klein Elevates Stand-Up—and the Improv—to a New Level Locking Horns with David Brenner Richard Lewis The Hippest Room in America The Improv’s Gentle Giant The Improv and The Tonight Show A Tale of Two Comedy Clubs Meeting Jay Producing My First Show Part Three Expansion My Early California Adventures Andy Kaufman Turns Stand-Up Upside Down Dissing Larry David A Tsunami Named Robin Comedy’s Tragic Prinze A Troubling Nemesis Named Mitzi Shore Going Up in Flames Old Enemies and New Beginnings Part Four An Evening at the Improv The Improv Explodes . . . and the Stakes Get Even Higher The Comedy Boom Busts and Finding Fallon Passing the Baton and Looking Ahead: The 2000s to the Present Acknowledgments About the Authors

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Book SynopsisThe rapid development of the TV series in the twenty-first century has resulted in an emergence of new aesthetic, cultural, and social trends. The development has influenced both the mainstream of popular culture and reception practices of audiences across nations and platforms. This book observes how the means employed in key contemporary TV series texts and a specific thematic variety have promoted new reception styles and redefined conventional interpretive practices. The authors analyze a variety of series released since 2000 to discuss historical (dis)continuities of genres and conventions, and observe how interpretive competences promoted by the rhetoric of contemporary TV series result from, and are polemical with, the conventions of visual and verbal cultures of preceding decades.Table of ContentsAesthetics, Themes, and Reception of 21st-century TV series. Subject matters discussed: Narrative Conventions and Experimentation; Visual Complexity and the Spectacle; Seriality and the Segmented Experience of Narrative; Representations of Female Identity, Representation of Race and Ethnicity, Dystopian Futures and (Not Too) Fictional Presents: Living the Covid-19 Pandemic; Reader/Viewer and the Text; Watching is the New Reading: Defining Reader’s Competences; Multimodal TV Series

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Book SynopsisThe book by Monika Talarczyk is devoted to the life and work of Wanda Jakubowska (1907–1998), author of The Last Stage (1948), an icon of women’s cinema, said to be the Mother of All Holocaust Films. The author discovers previously unknown facts in Jakubowska’s biography from the period of her childhood in Russia and her youth, associated with Polish socialists. She also provides a closer look at the director’s activity in post-war production culture as a chairwoman of the film units and a teacher at the £ódŸ Film School. Talarczyk presents Jakubowska’s works in the context of Holocaust studies as well as women’s cinema. The publication includes Jakubowska’s descriptive filmography. The director’s achievements are illustrated by previously unpublished photos from film sets as well as film stills from Jakubowska’s private archive.Table of Contentswomen’s cinema – Holocaust movies – Wanda Jakubowska – The Last Stage – Holocaust studies – descriptive filmography

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Book SynopsisJoan Didion (1934-2021) was one of America’s most iconic writers and intellectuals. Her reportage and essays, as well as her novels and memoirs provide sharp comments on a variety of facets of American culture and politics between the 1960s and the 2010s. Employing the complex relationship between life and words as guiding framework, the volume offers fresh approaches to Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Play It As It Lays, The White Album, Democracy and Where I Was From, as well as takes on her final publications The Year of Magical Thinking, Blue Nights and Let Me Tell You What I Mean. The collection also features photographs of Didion and her husband, John Gregory Dunne, with an accompanying essay by artist and photographer Nancy Ellison, plus a contribution by literary biographer Tracy Daugherty.Table of ContentsNotebooks – (auto)biography – photographs – Joan Didion – California – nostalgia – mental landscape – (post)-west – intimacy – reparative reading – LA – anti-sentimentality – Black Panthers – NYC – environmental psychology – place attachment – (dis)illusion – feminism – power – storytelling – abandonment – crossing story

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Book SynopsisCosa c'entra il cabaret con la glottodidattica? Apparentemente nulla, eppure se sapientemente sfruttato dagli insegnanti può risultare un ottimo materiale audiovisivo per gli studenti di LS. Le molteplici situazioni della vita quotidiana mostrate negli sketch, la presenza di diversi tipi di linguaggio (gerghi, slang, disfemismi, locuzioni diatopiche, diastrasiche ecc.), i giochi di parole, i rimandi storico-culturali e infine la presenza di un pubblico reale che reagisce alle battute dei cabarettisti: tutto ciò rende tale materiale un vero e proprio banco di prova per le competenze linguistiche e comunicative degli studenti, soprattutto a livelli avanzati. Attraverso la comprensione, analisi e la successiva traduzione delle battute dei comici italiani e polacchi ogni studente può verificare il proprio livello di apprendimento linguistico, mettere a reale confronto la propria lingua e cultura con la LS e infine sviluppare la capacità traduttiva e la produzione creativa in italiano.

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Book SynopsisThis helpful guide on memory improvement will assist you both in your everyday life as well as when performing magic. It included simple memory systems — resources to help improve and increase your memory — that will help you prepare for exams, remember shopping list and upcoming events, memorize people’s names at a party, and many more. Magic that is related to the mind are highly mysterious and appealing to the audience. Mnemotecnia teatral includes more than 200 pages filled with simple techniques that create spectacular memory demonstrations and tricks. When you start learning and applying memory system techniques, you will even amaze yourself!

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Book SynopsisRocky Graziano, juvenile delinquent, middleweight boxing champion, and comedic actor, was the last great fighter from the golden age of boxing, the era of Joe Louis, Jake LaMotta, and Sugar Ray Robinson. In Rocky Graziano: Fists, Fame, and Fortune, Jeffrey Sussman tells the rags-to-riches story of Tommy Rocco Barbella, who came to be known as Rocky Graziano. Raised by an abusive father, Graziano took to the streets and soon found himself in reformatories and prison cells. Drafted into the U.S. Army, Graziano went AWOL but was eventually caught, tried, and sent to prison for a year. After his release, Rocky went on to have one successful boxing match after another and quickly ascended up the pyramid of professional boxing. In one of the bloodiest battles in the history of the middleweight division, Rocky beat Tony Zale and became the middleweight champion of the world. Rocky retired from boxing after he lost his crown to Sugar Ray Robinson and went on to have a successful acting career in two acclaimed television series. Rich and famous, he was no longer the angry young man he once was. In his post-boxing life, Rocky became known for his good humor, witty remarks, and kindness and generosity to those in need. Rocky Graziano’s life is not only inspiring, it is also a story of redemption, of how boxing became the vehicle for saving a young man from a life of anger and crime and leading him into a life of happiness and honesty. The first biography of Graziano in over 60 years, this book will bring his story to a new generation of boxing fans and sports historians.Trade ReviewJeffrey Sussman brings Rocky Graziano to life not only inside the ring but also—and more important to this reader—outside of it. Graziano’s personality and his personal life, his post-fight career as a television comedian with Martha Raye and as a television pitchman and his giving nature to others less fortunate is what makes this an outstanding biography. -- J Russell Peltz, boxing promoter, International Boxing Hall of Fame, class of 2004Rocky Graziano was one of my all-time favorite fighters. Being in the boxing business for over thirty-five years, I thought I knew it all about Rocky. That was until I read Jeffrey Sussman's new book, Rocky Graziano: Fists, Fame and Fortune. Sussman tells Graziano's story like no other ever written. I learned things about Rocky I never knew before. Sussman's writing style not only educated me more about Rocky Graziano, he put me there with him. Page after page, I felt I was with Graziano, feeling his pain as a child and his triumphs as World Champion. I could not put it down! This book is a must read for all, not just boxing fans. I fully enjoyed this book! -- Bill Calogero, boxing historian and host of the Talkin' Boxing with Billy C TV & Radio ProgramRocky Graziano was one of the most exciting and interesting boxers of the twentieth century. He was one of the highlights of the Golden Era of boxing. Jeffrey Sussman has captured this man and this time period in a fascinating story. Every punch that Rocky threw from his young years, through his championship years and into his old age is presented in riveting excitement. When you read Jeffrey’s work you relive the three classic fights with Tony Zale. You feel like you are in the ring with them. You can feel the emotion that Rocky felt emerging from a street tough to a very wealthy and famous person. Once you start this book, you will not put it down. -- Bruce Silverglade, owner of boxing’s world-famous Gleason’s GymBoxing aficionado Jeffrey Sussman has done it again! Sussman tells the story of a hero from the late 1940's and 1950's in Rocky Graziano: Fists, Fame, and Fortune. Graziano was a tough-as-nails fighter who became a beloved figured in the United States, especially in the Italian-American community. Rocky was not just a great fighter but a celebrity who could be seen all over during the early days of American television. Sussman tells Rocky’s story, which sweeps through the mid-twentieth century, discussing the appeal of boxing as a road to stardom. -- Steven R. Maggi, host/executive producer of the radio show Vegas Never SleepsA good biography is successful when the reader can imagine the subject as a living and breathing human being. If an author is unable to bring the person he or she is writing about alive, they often end up resembling a statue—still untouchable and hard to understand. Jeffrey Sussman’s writing on Rocky Graziano breathes life into a legendary fighter who has been largely forgotten in some quarters. Graziano’s unlikely rise from thief to middleweight champion of the world, and television star, is beautifully realized. I thoroughly enjoyed it. -- John J. Raspanti, co-author of Intimate Warfare: The True Story of the Arturo Gatti and Micky Ward Boxing TrilogyThe rebellious knockout artist, Rocky Graziano, made a dramatic comeback in 1956 with Robert Wise’s award-winning film Somebody Up There Likes Me. Now, sixty-one years later, Graziano is making what should be a second award-winning comeback with Jeffrey Sussman’s Rocky Graziano: Fists, Fame, and Fortune. Graziano’s life was colorful and turbulent and it is chronicled here in exciting detail. Sussman captures it all. This is a must read! -- Peter W. Wood, author of Confessions of a Fighter and A Clenched Fist: The Making of a Golden Gloves ChampionRocky Graziano (1919–90), born Tommy Rocco Barbella, was a charismatic boxer who held the world middleweight title in the late 1940s. His three title fights with Tony Zale in which Zale won the first and last, are considered by boxing historians to be among the most brutal ever contested. After Graziano retired from the ring in the early fifties, he became a popular show-business personality. Sussman examines Graziano’s sketchy youth, which seemed to foreshadow a life of crime. A stint in prison following his going AWOL from the army took him further down that road, but boxing proved to be his way out, as it did for so many young men in the postwar era. As talented as he was, Graziano hated to train, opting for the good life after he won the title from Zale. Sussman does a fine job with the biographical details from start to finish, but he really nails the fight descriptions, creating a sensory experience in which the reader can almost feel the punches and hear the crowds. A vivid slice of boxing History. * Booklist *Prolific boxing writer Sussman (Max Baer and Barnie Ross: Jewish Heroes of Boxing) relates in overwrought prose the rags-to-riches saga of a delinquent who slugged his way from the slums of Manhattan into America’s heart. Thomas Rocco “Rocky” Barbella was born in 1919 to a mentally ill mother and abusive, alcoholic father. He had to fight for everything: by the time he was three, his six-year-old brother was regularly thrashing him in sparring sessions ordered by their father, a failed boxer. Violent and hyperactive, Rocky took to gang life and street crime, a course that landed him in reform school and then prison. He joined the military but went AWOL after punching a captain (to elude the MPs, he took the name Graziano and fought four boxing matches until he was discovered). Fortunately for Rocky, boxing’s popularity turned his powerful right hand into a valuable commodity. A brutal trilogy of fights with Tony Zale made him a sports-page fixture; an unexpected talent for performing made him a sitcom star and pitchman for everything from Post Raisin Bran to Off-Track Betting. He wrote a bestselling memoir in 1955 called Somebody Up There Likes Me; Paul Newman played the boxer in the movie version...That said, his more thoughtful sketches of the long-forgotten men who faced Graziano provide a moving reminder that a career in boxing is not a fairy tale for most. * Publishers Weekly *[Sussman] chronicles the life of an outstanding world champion middleweight in the postwar era. . . .[Its] engaging narrative will appeal to fans of boxing history. Recommended. * CHOICE *

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