Dances in the park: The pre-history of the Maynardville Open Air Theatre

There is a popular belief that Cape Town’s Maynardville Theatre was founded in 1955, and first used in 1956, as the brainchild of the two professional actresses Cecilia Sonnenberg and René Ahrenson. While this is true of the Shakespeare-in-the-Park productions over the years, the use of Maynardville as a performance venue dates back to 1950 and the efforts of Margaret Molteno, the Athlone Committee for Nursery School Education and the University of Cape Town Ballet Company. This article traces the evolution of the popular theatre venue from the first production of a triple bill (comprising Les Sylphides, St Valentine’s Night and Les Diversions) in a makeshift theatre in the Maynardville Park grounds in 1950, to the introduction of Shakespeare in 1956, and ultimately the outdoor theatre of today with its annual Shakespeare and ballet productions. The Shakespearean history is already well-documented, so this article focuses more specifically on the somewhat forgotten role played by ballet productions in that history. The article includes a short history of the original property and the creation of the public park, as well as a full list of the ballets and plays performed at Maynardville since 1950.

Unavoidable Mathematics

Historically, most students really have been struggling with mathematics, which for the most part specifically makes them wonder if they will ever generally apply the knowledge in general sort of real world life, contrary to popular belief. Teachers and parents mostly particularly admit when they kind of really have been kind of kind of asked that students for all intents and purposes actually have very definitely for all intents and purposes few knowledge about the relevance of mathematics in real life, or so they thought. That essentially is why this paper really mostly is based on application of maths in particularly generally real life, or so they definitely thought, or so they really thought. In this paper the most common and pretty essential applications of mathematics in real life literally generally are discussed such as finance and banking, weather prediction, computers and its games, search engines (goggle), music and Transportation and logistics in a subtle way in a very major way. Apart from these some mostly advanced applications are also discussed actually such as satellite navigation, military and Defence and crime prediction in a particularly big way. Keywords: Mathematics, Real life, Finance and Banking, Satellite Navigation, Military and Defence

Exploratory Graph Analysis for Factor Retention: Simulation Results for Continuous and Binary Data

Exploratory graph analysis (EGA) is a commonly applied technique intended to help social scientists discover latent variables. Yet, the results can be influenced by the methodological decisions the researcher makes along the way. In this article, we focus on the choice regarding the number of factors to retain: We compare the performance of the recently developed EGA with various traditional factor retention criteria. We use both continuous and binary data, as evidence regarding the accuracy of such criteria in the latter case is scarce. Simulation results, based on scenarios resulting from varying sample size, communalities from major factors, interfactor correlations, skewness, and correlation measure, show that EGA outperforms the traditional factor retention criteria considered in most cases in terms of bias and accuracy. In addition, we show that factor retention decisions for binary data are preferably made using Pearson, instead of tetrachoric, correlations, which is contradictory to popular belief.

The Vulnerable Therapeutic Water Spaces of Virgen de Caysasay

The Virgen de Caysasay is one of the oldest manifestations of the Virgin Mary in the Philippines. According to popular belief, a fisherman netted her statue in the Pansipit River in 1603. Many miraculous healing events, mostly involving water, have been attributed to her. Despite the devastating effects of the climate crisis, Caysasay water spaces endure as therapeutic, healing, and ritual places. This essay examines the interlocking dynamics and vulnerabilities of bodies of water associated with the Virgen de Caysasay, their contextual sacred spaces where pieties are performed, and their surrounding communities

The image of the German in current literature and media

The aim of this article was to analyse the reflection of the image of the German in the examples from the current literature and the media present in the Corpus of the Contemporary Lithuanian Language of the Vytautas Magnus University. The focus of the study went beyond the collocations with this word and the disclosure of the characteristic traits of Germans all the way to the meaning bestowed upon this word by the broader context – the sentence or a group of them. Examples containing all forms of the lexeme German were examined. A total of six different contexts in which Germans are mentioned were identified: these were the contexts of history, cooperation, sports, culture, characteristic traits, and science. In the context of history, Germans are usually referred to as a belligerent nation, assailants, savage conquerors, invaders. The attitude towards them is negative as often as not. Things are different in the context of cooperation, where the attitude is positive and Germans are seen as friendly partners. In the contexts of sports, culture, and science, the story is more or less the same, with Germans regarded with respect as meritorious and high-ranking representatives of their field.The context of the characteristic traits of Germans has the highest degree of controversy and stereotype. Some data show that Germans, according to the popular belief, are neat, rational, organised, punctual, disciplined, hard-working, cultured, law-abiding; they are rather cold and reserved. Other examples, albeit much smaller in number, bear witness to quite the opposite: that Germans are neither punctual nor overly neat or cultured; some sources even say that they are friendly, merry, and approachable. Besides, this nature loves to travel.

Gagauz people, housing, building ritual system, making a sacrifice, sacrifice for the building

In the article “The Building Ritual System of Gagauz People (On the Formulation of the Question)”, building rituals are considered in relation to the stages of the construction of housing and getting used to it. These include rituals performed prior to housing construction, rituals accompanying the construction, and rituals performed upon moving to a new house. An attempt was made to reveal the semantics of building rituals and to highlight the role of housing in the Gagauz perception of the world. Gagauz tradition has it that all the stages of house construction and the process of inhabiting it are accompanied by rituals, among which the most important are the rituals associated with the idea of the world tree and with the sacrifice for the building. According to popular belief, the performed rituals ensured the security and prosperity to its residents.

Water Bodies in the Besserman Mythology and Rituals

Springs and rivers determine the formation of the sacral landscape of settlements and play a part in the rituals, mythology, traditional world model and space of the Besserman. They serve as essential resources of subsistence, are used domestically and are taken into account when zoning settlements. Besserman villages are located on hills near rivers and large freshwater springs. In the traditional world model, rivers connect different parts of the space, i.e. the upper and lower worlds, upper and lower reaches, sky and earth. Rivers simultaneously serve as natural and mythological borders, functioning as roads both metaphorically and literally. According to popular belief, water from rivers and springs travels to the sky via rainbows, and then falls to earth and into rivers by way of rain and snow. Historically prayers were said and rituals held near rivers from the start of the floating of the ice to the autumn. In summer, they were held only in emergency cases (drought or wet summers). Water from springs had healing properties and was used in folk medicine. Alongside traditional perceptions, the Besserman also have local rituals related to the veneration of springs that are connected with Orthodox and Muslim beliefs and revered saints.

Stoic Grit and Resilience

The Stoics argue, contrary to popular belief, that resilience and grit depend on strong social supports. Marcus Aurelius paints a chilling image in the Meditations: Without each other, individuals are like severed body parts strewn on a battlefield. They can’t function well or at all. Social connection works through shared reason and through emotions, which are themselves kinds of cognitions. Seneca’s Letters, based on an intimate epistolary relationship with young Lucilius, exemplifies the important role of emotional attachments for good living. Hierocles pictures bringing distant others into one’s orbit through repeated acts of empathy and imagination. In Hercules Rages, Seneca shows that grit depends on more than physical strength or inner toughness. In the face of a horrific tragedy, Hercules learns that to sustain his heroic courage he needs mercy that he can’t show himself. Others must model it for him. He must lean on them for his own sanity and strength.

Motivation for intellectual work

The author reflects on how our understanding of the motivation of an intellectual worker is being transformed today. How much does the creative component of work change the structure of motivation? Where is the line between labor-necessity and labor-need? Can there be a universal approach to financial incentives in this case? The author proposes for discussion the matrix developed for choosing the level of individualization (collectivization) of the motivation system in corporations, summarizing various sources. Companies in the high-tech sector, which is making an increasing contribution to the GDP of the leading economies, contrary to popular belief, are increasingly using the assessment of collective (team) work considering individual professional competencies. Thus, the article examines not the most noticeable "critical areas" of modern research on the motivation for intellectual work, and also presents the author's conclusions about possible practical tools in this area.