Samuzala lived through colonialism in Angola, the liberation war, the civil war that followed independence, forced displacement to Zambia, and a landmine accident resulting in amputation. At different points in his life, Samuzala was a trader, a migrant, a refugee, and an amputee. In engaging with Samuzala’s life story, a narrative of movement, w…[Read more]

Singing while working and working while singing have appeared to be, throughout history, the same social activity without a clear or categorical distinction. In this paper we explore this field in the industrial shoemaking environment in Menorca (Balearic Islands), regarding it as a social process of adaptation and resistance against contemporary…[Read more]

In the National Theatre of Scotland’s The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart (2011), the eponymous heroine is a collector of ballads, who views her role as the loving preservation of traditional artworks. However, Prudencia’s perspective is challenged by her late-night encounter with the sinister Nick, whose own passion for collecting forces Pru…[Read more]

This chapter emerges from the energies and aspirations of the years leading up to the Scottish Independence Referendum of September 2014, and explores three dramas created during this period: The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart (David Greig, 2011), The Bloody Great Border Ballad Project (Northern Stage, 2013) and Rantin (Kieran Hurley, 2013). It…[Read more]

Profiling the Samuel Becket collection at the University of Reading

Bibliography of scholarly works on Haitian (diasporic) dance and movement.

In cultural studies today, there is emerging an interpretive revolution “from below” – that is, a radical reassessment of the politics of cultural forms, based on a recovery of the embodied and affective subject as the center of meaning-making. Making sense of dance performances is therefore methodologically important because of their parti…[Read more]

During the rise of Italian immigration to the United States between 1870 and 1930, the sceneggiata, a musical theater genre popular in Naples, began its tenure in the theaters located within predominantly Italian neighborhoods of the United States. The sceneggiata revolved around specific Neapolitan songs and was one of the few types of…[Read more]

Este artículo acusa que historiadores y críticos de las dramaturgias chilenas del S. XX padecen de agorafobia: pavor súbito a los espacios ajenos. Esto porque, en sus trabajos, desatienden espacios de producción teatral situados en los extramuros de los campus universitarios. De acuerdo con este diagnóstico, se proponen claves para una agenda de i…[Read more]

Henry V has one of the most divisive critical histories in the Shakespeare canon. For the first two hundred years after being published, it was seen as a patriotic celebration of the heroic warrior King Henry V and his victory at Agincourt. But in 1817 William Hazlitt made remarks critical of the King and several subsequent commentators interested…[Read more]

This review-essay discusses George Brant’s play Grounded (2013) in the context of its production at the Gate Theatre (London). It begins with a critical examination of my own “mis-seeing” of the play’s protagonist as a version of the tragic Heracles. The analysis which follows compares key aspects of The Pilot’s narrative with Euripides’ Heracles…[Read more]

This essay explores how the early American stage functioned as an incubator for ideas about national identity, artistic expression, and masculinity. Reading four plays from the early years of the Republic – Royall Tyler’s The Contrast, William Dunlap’s Andre´, John Augustus Stone’s Metamora, and Robert Montgomery Bird’s The Gladiator, I demonstrat…[Read more]

Encounters with the Russian Avant Garde

Since the 1950s, Brigadoon has been accepted as a representation of Scotland. Brigadoon’s Scotland consists of a highland landscape with lochs, mists, castles populated by fair maidens, warlike yet sensitive kilted men and bagpipers. Much of this comes from the invented traditions of Scotland, particularly kilts and clan tartans; late n…[Read more]

Ever since appearing in Disney’s Saludos Amigos (1942), Ary Barroso’s musical ode to the Brazilian motherland, “Brazil,” is among the most recognizable songs circulating in Western Culture about Brazil. This essay shows how the song became detached from its roots as a nationalist samba to represent in audiovisual media such divergent ideas as tro…[Read more]

In this article I demonstrate how listeners understand musical processes with their bodies, and how their gestures can be used to build analytical models. Specifically, I draw on the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty to argue that situated, active listeners project their motor intentional gestures inside music, where they reconstitute the…[Read more]

This paper argues that Epicene, Jonson’s first public play after being made official court masque writer, is unusually optimistic about the possibilities of drama. The play explores the possibility of creating an authentic personality through performance, an idea that Jonson is often hostile towards. However, Jonson’s flirtation with this…[Read more]