Amateur and Proletarian Theatre in Post-Revolutionary Russia

Amateur and Proletarian Theatre in Post-Revolutionary Russia PDF Author: Stefan Aquilina
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350170992
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
This is the first collection of primary sources that addresses the amateur theatre produced by the workers in the first decade after the Russian Revolution. Newly translated from the Russian, the essays capture both theoretical articulations on the scene – by luminaries such as Alexander Bogdanov, Platon Kerzhentsev, Valerian Pletnev, Alexander Mgebrov and Valentin Smyshliaev – and the more fleeting descriptions and first-hand accounts of the productions staged, accounts and voices which are typically harder to capture. The essays tell a story of unabashed optimism in the creativity of the working classes. They speak of the use of theatre to carve a public and political role in the construction of a new world. The sources, however, also exhibit the flipside of the scene, or the sombre difficulties faced by the amateur actors and the incessant calls to raise standards through professional help. The narrative developed is that of an amateur theatre which began as an autonomous and heterogeneous activity but which by the mid-to-late 1920s was transformed into a regulated practice and a space for cultural programming. The collection makes an important contribution to our understanding of modern theatre: scholarship conventionally tackles the canonical names from the professional world but gives little attention to the more down-to-earth forms of performance taking place in factories, clubs and amateur circles. An introductory essay also highlights the range and significance of the collection and draws links between the essays.

Amateur and Proletarian Theatre in Post-Revolutionary Russia

Amateur and Proletarian Theatre in Post-Revolutionary Russia PDF Author: Stefan Aquilina
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350170992
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 233

Get Book Here

Book Description
This is the first collection of primary sources that addresses the amateur theatre produced by the workers in the first decade after the Russian Revolution. Newly translated from the Russian, the essays capture both theoretical articulations on the scene – by luminaries such as Alexander Bogdanov, Platon Kerzhentsev, Valerian Pletnev, Alexander Mgebrov and Valentin Smyshliaev – and the more fleeting descriptions and first-hand accounts of the productions staged, accounts and voices which are typically harder to capture. The essays tell a story of unabashed optimism in the creativity of the working classes. They speak of the use of theatre to carve a public and political role in the construction of a new world. The sources, however, also exhibit the flipside of the scene, or the sombre difficulties faced by the amateur actors and the incessant calls to raise standards through professional help. The narrative developed is that of an amateur theatre which began as an autonomous and heterogeneous activity but which by the mid-to-late 1920s was transformed into a regulated practice and a space for cultural programming. The collection makes an important contribution to our understanding of modern theatre: scholarship conventionally tackles the canonical names from the professional world but gives little attention to the more down-to-earth forms of performance taking place in factories, clubs and amateur circles. An introductory essay also highlights the range and significance of the collection and draws links between the essays.

Amateur and Proletarian Theatre in Post-Revolutionary Russia

Amateur and Proletarian Theatre in Post-Revolutionary Russia PDF Author: Stefan Aquilina
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350170984
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
This is the first collection of primary sources that addresses the amateur theatre produced by the workers in the first decade after the Russian Revolution. Newly translated from the Russian, the essays capture both theoretical articulations on the scene – by luminaries such as Alexander Bogdanov, Platon Kerzhentsev, Valerian Pletnev, Alexander Mgebrov and Valentin Smyshliaev – and the more fleeting descriptions and first-hand accounts of the productions staged, accounts and voices which are typically harder to capture. The essays tell a story of unabashed optimism in the creativity of the working classes. They speak of the use of theatre to carve a public and political role in the construction of a new world. The sources, however, also exhibit the flipside of the scene, or the sombre difficulties faced by the amateur actors and the incessant calls to raise standards through professional help. The narrative developed is that of an amateur theatre which began as an autonomous and heterogeneous activity but which by the mid-to-late 1920s was transformed into a regulated practice and a space for cultural programming. The collection makes an important contribution to our understanding of modern theatre: scholarship conventionally tackles the canonical names from the professional world but gives little attention to the more down-to-earth forms of performance taking place in factories, clubs and amateur circles. An introductory essay also highlights the range and significance of the collection and draws links between the essays.

Modern Theatre in Russia

Modern Theatre in Russia PDF Author: Stefan Aquilina
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350066095
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
What did modern theatre in Russia look like and how did it foreground tradition building and transmission processes? The book challenges conventional historiographical approaches by weaving contemporary theories on cultural transmission into its historical narrative. It argues that processes of transmission – training spaces, acting manuals, photographic evidence, newspaper reports, international networking, informal encounters, cultural memories – contribute to the formation and consolidation of theatre traditions. Through English translations of rare Russian sources, the book expounds on: *side-lined material on Stanislavsky, including his relationship with German actor Ludwig Barnay, use of improvisation at the First Studio, and rehearsal practices for Artists and Admirers (1933); *Valentin Smyshlaev's acting manual The Technique to Process Stage Performance and the creation of hybrid practices; *proletarian theatre as an amateur-professional combination and force in the transformation of everyday life, as seen in the Proletkult's volume Art at the Workers' Clubs; *Meyerhold's Borodin Studio as an early example of Practice as Research, his European tour of 1930, and international persona as depicted in newspapers published in the West; and *Asja Lacis's work with children, which contributes to current efforts to address the gender imbalance that is often characteristic of modernism. This historical-theoretical investigation is combined with practical exercises that provide a more experiential understanding of the modern performance realities involved. In this way, the book speaks not only to theatre scholars and historians, but also to students and practitioners engaged in practical work.

The Routledge Companion to Vsevolod Meyerhold

The Routledge Companion to Vsevolod Meyerhold PDF Author: Jonathan Pitches
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000764567
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 681

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Book Description
The Routledge Companion to Vsevolod Meyerhold brings together a wealth of scholarship on one of the foremost innovators in European theatre. It presents a detailed picture of the Russian director’s work from when it first emerged on the modern stage to its multifarious present-day manifestations. By combining an historical focus with the latest contemporary research from an international range of perspectives and authors, this collection marks an important moment in Meyerhold studies as well as offering a new assessment of his relation to today's theatre-making. Its dynamic blend of research is presented in five sections: Histories enlarges on more conventional subjects like the grotesque and Biomechanics, to overlooked topics such as Meyerhold's ‘failed’ projects and his work in film; Collaborations and Connections extends understandings of Meyerhold’s well-known collaborative capacities to consider new cultural influences and lesser known working relationships; Sources engages with hitherto untapped material in Meyerhold’s oeuvre by reproducing and contextualising previously untranslated primary sources on his work; Practitioner Voices offer lively, on the ground, testimony of the contemporary impact of Meyerhold's practice; Meyerhold in New Contexts maps the routes of his practice across continents and examines ways in which his work is being applied in a number of contemporary scenarios, such as motion capture, computer-based 3D visualisations, and the ‘new normal’ of digital pedagogy. This is a key resource for students and scholars of European Theatre, acting theory, and actor training, as well as for those more broadly interested in the socio-political impact of theatre.

Stanislavsky and Pedagogy

Stanislavsky and Pedagogy PDF Author: Stefan Aquilina
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000909328
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 179

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Book Description
Stanislavsky and Pedagogy explores current thinking around the pedagogical implications of Stanislavsky’s work. The volume depicts the voices of a number of practitioners, teachers, and scholars who are themselves journeying with Stanislavsky, and who in his work find a potent instigator for their own pedagogical practice and study. This book outlines instances in which updated interpretations of Stanislavsky’s pedagogy are adapted to cater for contemporary needs and scenarios. These include the theatre industry, new digital technologies, the need to develop playfulness, application to a broad repertoire, performance as pedagogy, university managerialism, and interdisciplinary crossovers with dance and opera. The pedagogies that emerge from these case-studies are marked by fluidity and non-fixity and help to underscore the malleability of Stanislavsky’s system. Stanislavsky And... is a series of multi-perspectival collections that bring the enduring legacy of Stanislavskian actor training into the spotlight of contemporary performance culture, making them ideal for students, teachers, and scholars of acting, actor training, and directing.

The Sovereign Self

The Sovereign Self PDF Author: Grant H. Kester
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 1478024550
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description
In The Sovereign Self, Grant H. Kester examines the evolving discourse of aesthetic autonomy from its origins in the Enlightenment through avant-garde projects and movements in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Kester traces the idea of aesthetic autonomy—the sense that art should be autonomous from social forces while retaining the ability to reflect back critically on society—through Kant, Schiller, Hegel, Marx, and Adorno. Kester critiques the use of aesthetic autonomy as the basis for understanding the nature of art and the shifting relationship between art and revolutionary praxis. He shows that dominant discourses of aesthetic autonomy reproduce the very forms of bourgeois liberalism that autonomy discourse itself claims to challenge. Analyzing avant-garde art and political movements in Russia, India, Latin America, and elsewhere, Kester retheorizes the aesthetic beyond autonomy. Ultimately, Kester demonstrates that the question of aesthetic autonomy has ramifications that extend beyond art to encompass the nature of political transformation and forms of anticolonial resistance that challenge the Eurocentric concept of “Man,” upon which the aesthetic itself often depends.

Living the Revolution

Living the Revolution PDF Author: Andy Willimott
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198725825
Category : Communal living
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
Living the Revolution offers a pioneering insight into the world of the early Soviet activist. At the heart of this book are a cast of fiery-eyed, bed-headed youths determined to be the change they wanted to see in the world. First banding together in the wake of the October Revolution, seizing hold of urban apartments, youthful enthusiasts tried to offer practical examples of socialist living. Calling themselves 'urban communes', they embraced total equality and shared everything from money to underwear. They actively sought to overturn the traditional family unit, reinvent domesticity, and promote a new collective vision of human interaction. A trend was set: a revolutionary meme that would, in the coming years, allow thousands of would-be revolutionaries and aspiring party members to experiment with the possibilities of socialism. The first definitive account of the urban communes, and the activists that formed them, this volume utilizes newly uncovered archival materials to chart the rise and fall of this revolutionary impulse. Laced with personal detail, it illuminates the thoughts and aspirations of individual activists as the idea of the urban commune grew from an experimental form of living, limited to a handful of participants in Petrograd and Moscow, into a cultural phenomenon that saw tens of thousands of youths form their own domestic units of socialist living by the end of the 1920s. Living the Revolution is a tale of revolutionary aspiration, appropriation, and participation at the ground level. Never officially sanctioned by the party, the urban communes challenge our traditional understanding of the early Soviet state, presenting Soviet ideology as something that could both frame and fire the imagination.

World Political Theatre and Performance

World Political Theatre and Performance PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004430997
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
World Political Theatre and Performance: Theories, Histories, Practices is the second collection of essays to emerge from the Political Performances Working Group at the International Federation for Theatre Research. Bringing together scholars and practitioners from multiple locations, the book analyses a range of examples – historical and contemporary – of counter-hegemonic theatre and performance. Part 1 offers a diachronic view of the relationship between activism and performance; Part 2 focuses on the changing nature of what constitutes ‘political theatre’ today. Case studies from Finland to India and from Chile to China are framed by section introductions that underline both commonalities and tensions, while the general introduction reflects on what a radical practice can look like in the face of global neoliberalism. Contributors: Julia Boll, Paola Botham, Marco Galea, Aneta Głowacka, Pujya Ghosh, Camila González Ortiz, Bérénice Hamidi-Kim, Fatine Bahar Karlıdağ, Madli Pesti, José Ramón Prado-Pérez, Trish Reid, Mikko-Olavi Seppälä, Andy Smith, Evi Stamatiou, Wei Zheyu.

The Conundrum of Russian Capitalism

The Conundrum of Russian Capitalism PDF Author: Ruslan Dzarasov
Publisher: Pluto Press (UK)
ISBN: 9781849649100
Category : Capitalism
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
Reveals the nature of Russian capitalism following the fall of the Soviet Union, showing the impact of both Soviet bureaucracy and global capital.

Art for the Workers

Art for the Workers PDF Author: Natalia Murray
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004355685
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
Art for the workers explores the mythology and reality of post-revolutionary proletarian art in Russia as well as its expression in the festive decorations of Petrograd between 1917 and 1920. It covers this brief period chronologically, and so permits a close inspection of the development of artistic policies in Russia under the Provisional Government followed by the Bolsheviks. Specifically, this book focuses on the pre-and post-revolutionary debate about the nature of proletarian art and its role in the new Socialist society, particularly focusing on festive decorations, parades and mass performances as expressions of proletarian art and forms of propaganda.