Whose Popular Theatre and Performance?

2020 ◽  
pp. 49-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Orkin
Keyword(s):  
Popular Theatre ◽  
And Performance

Peter Brook's Heart of Light: ‘Primitivism’ and Intercultural Theatre

1995 ◽  
Vol 11 (41) ◽  
pp. 33-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Moody
Keyword(s):  
Half Life ◽  
Degree Zero ◽  
Indigenous Art ◽  
Popular Theatre ◽  
Contemporary Theatre ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Global Discourse ◽  
And Performance

Peter Brook's work has always figured in debates over ‘intercultural’ projects in the contemporary theatre. However, the controversy has most often centred on his engagement with Asian theatrical traditions, and in particular on his production of The Mahabharata. David Moody here examines Peter Brook's writings on Africa, as theatrical ‘discourse’ with its own theoretical half-life quite distinct from actual productions. This discourse, it is argued, can be described as ‘primitivist’, in that it constructs the African audience as, in Barthes's term, ‘degree zero’ – a ‘limit-text’ to universal theatrical communication. In doing so it presents a limiting version of African theatrical traditions themselves, and, as a result, reinforces a broader, more destructive global discourse of cultural primitivism concerning African and so-called ‘indigenous’ art and performance. David Moody, who currently lectures in Theatre and Drama Studies at Murdoch University, Perth, Australia, is a playwright, actor, and director who has written extensively on African, post-colonial, and popular theatre, and is now engaged in his own problematic intercultural projects.

The Théâtre du Soleil, Part Two: the Road to Cambodia

1986 ◽  
Vol 2 (7) ◽  
pp. 203-212
Author(s):  
Adrian Kiernander
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Performance Style ◽  
Popular Theatre ◽  
The Road ◽  
Theatre Company ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ariane Mnouchkine ◽  
And Performance

One theatre company alone in France, since the end of Vilar's Théâtre National Populaire, continues to make us consider the relationships between theatre and life, the place of theatre in society, its ability to modify the order of things in some way. It is the Théâtre du Soleil, guided by Ariane Mnouchkine.THE SEARCH for a contemporary popular theatre which has occupied the Théâtre du Soleil almost since its foundation 22 years ago has led the company at various times into innovations in both subject matter and performance style. Their latest production, The Terrible but Unfinished History of Norodom Sihanouk, King of Combodia, breaks new ground in both areas.

Langston Hughes and the Scandal of Early Blues Poetry

2020 ◽  
pp. 128-150
Author(s):  
Adam Gussow
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Langston Hughes ◽  
Black Press ◽  
Cultural Participation ◽  
Popular Theatre ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Low Rate

The history of the blues is, among other things, a history of commentators who lament the appropriation, commercialization, dilution, sexing-up, and other misuse of the blues. Early blues scholar Howard Odum wrote about the blues in this way, decrying the “filth” propagated by the “depraved” Negro blues singers of Lafayette County, Mississippi. Langston Hughes, America’s first great Black blues poet, would later lament that popular theatre had “taken my blues and gone,” but he too, as a young and insurgent poet, was castigated by the Black press of his time as the “poet low-rate of Harlem” for having dared to depict his blues people with their bawdy, sometimes violent vitality intact. Focusing on Hughes’s key early poem, “The Weary Blues” (1925), this chapter seeks the source of his greatness as a blues translator—somebody who sensed power of blues lyricism and performance was located and found ways of conveying that power on the printed page, inventing blues literature in the process. This chapter also explores the so-called “blues craze” of the 1920s: the sudden emergence of a mass African American audience for race records on the heels of Mamie Smith’s “Crazy Blues” (1920), followed by broader cultural participation.

Subverting Rosalind: Cocky Ros in the Forest of Arden

1991 ◽  
Vol 7 (26) ◽  
pp. 126-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lesley Anne Soule
Keyword(s):  
Male Adolescent ◽  
Love Affair ◽  
Popular Theatre ◽  
University Of British Columbia ◽  
As You Like It ◽  
South West ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The University

The foregoing article by Jan Kott explored the nature of gender in As You Like It largely by looking forward to later analogues of androgyny: but here Lesley Soule examines the character of Rosalind in close relationship to traditions of popular theatre and performance on which Shakespeare himself could draw. She points out how our own two-centuries-old love affair with an idealized heroine has, despite some recent feminist modifications of the character-myth, distorted our reading of the play, obscuring the fact that the text describes a performance in which the controlling presence is not a female performer but a male adolescent – a figure whose long theatrical antecedence she explores. This portrayal by a pert boy Roscius of Shakespeare's boy-girl character the author dubs ‘Cocky Ros’ – a figure who first represents and then subverts the feminine fiction of ‘Rosalind’, thus providing a paradigm of character-actor interplay. Only by giving authority to such subversive, gender-free performers, she argues, can we challenge the power wielded by theatrical illusion over our ideas of identity, gender, and love. Lesley Soule, who has taught at the University of British Columbia and at Polytechnic South West, is currently completing a study of theories of the character-actor relationship.

Look at the Clouds: Migration and West Sumatran ‘Popular’ Theatre

2003 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 214-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Isaac Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Colonial Period ◽  
The West ◽  
Temporary Migration ◽  
Popular Theatre ◽  
Art Form ◽  
West Sumatra ◽  
Theatre Studies ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The University ◽  
Important Evidence

The numerous interrelated ‘popular’ theatres of Indonesia provide important evidence for the study of artistic interaction and change. The West Sumatran Randai theatre emerged in a culturally hybrid space and has been a sensitive index to local, national, and international flows and conditions. Matthew Isaac Cohen traces the origins of Randai in the late-colonial period and discusses its associations with rantau – a time of temporary migration, traditionally associated with the rite of passage to adulthood, but increasingly a semi-permanent exile for many Sumatrans. He then traces how and why Randai has now become more than a local art form, having been exported out of the province of West Sumatra to be utilized as source material for modern theatre by Indonesian theatre makers in Jakarta and Australia. Matthew Isaac Cohen is a Lecturer in Theatre Studies at the University of Glasgow, a scholar of Indonesian theatre and performance, and a practising shadow puppeteer.

Transmission Scanning Electron Microscopy and Energy Analysis with the Siemens ELMISKOP 101

1972 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 450-451
Author(s):  
H. M. Thieringer
Keyword(s):  
Objective Lens ◽  
Transmission Microscopy ◽  
Image Recording ◽  
Mode Of Operation ◽  
Scanning Transmission ◽  
Electron Microscopes ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Convergent Beam ◽  
Ray Path ◽  
Beam Diffraction

It has repeatedly been show that with conventional electron microscopes very fine electron probes can be produced, therefore allowing various micro-techniques such as micro recording, X-ray microanalysis and convergent beam diffraction. In this paper the function and performance of an SIEMENS ELMISKOP 101 used as a scanning transmission microscope (STEM) is described. This mode of operation has some advantages over the conventional transmission microscopy (CTEM) especially for the observation of thick specimen, in spite of somewhat longer image recording times.Fig.1 shows schematically the ray path and the additional electronics of an ELMISKOP 101 working as a STEM. With a point-cathode, and using condensor I and the objective lens as a demagnifying system, an electron probe with a half-width ob about 25 Å and a typical current of 5.10-11 amp at 100 kV can be obtained in the back focal plane of the objective lens.

Angular Resolved Electron Spectroscopy with Parallel Recording

1990 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 370-371
Author(s):  
Huang Min ◽  
P.S. Flora ◽  
C.J. Harland ◽  
J.A. Venables
Keyword(s):  
Electron Spectroscopy ◽  
Low Voltage ◽  
Solid Angle ◽  
Detection System ◽  
Voltage Electron ◽  
Cylindrical Mirror ◽  
Inner Radius ◽  
Channel Plate ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Type Detector

A cylindrical mirror analyser (CMA) has been built with a parallel recording detection system. It is being used for angular resolved electron spectroscopy (ARES) within a SEM. The CMA has been optimised for imaging applications; the inner cylinder contains a magnetically focused and scanned, 30kV, SEM electron-optical column. The CMA has a large inner radius (50.8mm) and a large collection solid angle (Ω > 1sterad). An energy resolution (ΔE/E) of 1-2% has been achieved. The design and performance of the combination SEM/CMA instrument has been described previously and the CMA and detector system has been used for low voltage electron spectroscopy. Here we discuss the use of the CMA for ARES and present some preliminary results.The CMA has been designed for an axis-to-ring focus and uses an annular type detector. This detector consists of a channel-plate/YAG/mirror assembly which is optically coupled to either a photomultiplier for spectroscopy or a TV camera for parallel detection.

Novel epoxy/anhydride alternatives for biological electron microscopy: Physical and performance characteristis of embed 812 and LX 112 in combination with NSA/NMA/DMAE

1989 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
pp. 1000-1001
Author(s):  
Joe A. Mascorro ◽  
Gerald S. Kirby
Keyword(s):  
Electron Microscopy ◽  
Flow Rate ◽  
Succinic Anhydride ◽  
Volume Flow Rate ◽  
Mass Density ◽  
Uranyl Acetate ◽  
Volume Flow ◽  
Base Resin ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Acid Anhydrides

Embedding media based upon an epoxy resin of choice and the acid anhydrides dodecenyl succinic anhydride (DDSA), nadic methyl anhydride (NMA), and catalyzed by the tertiary amine 2,4,6-Tri(dimethylaminomethyl) phenol (DMP-30) are widely used in biological electron microscopy. These media possess a viscosity character that can impair tissue infiltration, particularly if original Epon 812 is utilized as the base resin. Other resins that are considerably less viscous than Epon 812 now are available as replacements. Likewise, nonenyl succinic anhydride (NSA) and dimethylaminoethanol (DMAE) are more fluid than their counterparts DDSA and DMP- 30 commonly used in earlier formulations. This work utilizes novel epoxy and anhydride combinations in order to produce embedding media with desirable flow rate and viscosity parameters that, in turn, would allow the medium to optimally infiltrate tissues. Specifically, embeding media based on EmBed 812 or LX 112 with NSA (in place of DDSA) and DMAE (replacing DMP-30), with NMA remaining constant, are formulated and offered as alternatives for routine biological work.Individual epoxy resins (Table I) or complete embedding media (Tables II-III) were tested for flow rate and viscosity. The novel media were further examined for their ability to infilftrate tissues, polymerize, sectioning and staining character, as well as strength and stability to the electron beam and column vacuum. For physical comparisons, a volume (9 ml) of either resin or media was aspirated into a capillary viscocimeter oriented vertically. The material was then allowed to flow out freely under the influence of gravity and the flow time necessary for the volume to exit was recored (Col B,C; Tables). In addition, the volume flow rate (ml flowing/second; Col D, Tables) was measured. Viscosity (n) could then be determined by using the Hagen-Poiseville relation for laminar flow, n = c.p/Q, where c = a geometric constant from an instrument calibration with water, p = mass density, and Q = volume flow rate. Mass weight and density of the materials were determined as well (Col F,G; Tables). Infiltration schedules utilized were short (1/2 hr 1:1, 3 hrs full resin), intermediate (1/2 hr 1:1, 6 hrs full resin) , or long (1/2 hr 1:1, 6 hrs full resin) in total time. Polymerization schedules ranging from 15 hrs (overnight) through 24, 36, or 48 hrs were tested. Sections demonstrating gold interference colors were collected on unsupported 200- 300 mesh grids and stained sequentially with uranyl acetate and lead citrate.

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