Performing Communities

Performing Communities PDF Author: Robert H. Leonard
Publisher: New Village Press
ISBN: 1613320884
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Ensemble theater is one of the vibrant, meaningful American performance forms today. It's more than art- it's a social movement. Ensemble theater is one of the hottest, most engaging American performance forms today. It's more than art- it's a movement. Performing Communities is an inquiry into a genre of theater that arises from and empowers the grassroots. The book profiles established ensemble groups from inner-city Los Angeles, small-town northern California, African-American South, multicultural southern Texas, low-income central Appalachia, economically struggling South Bronx New York, and cross-continental Native America. This compendium of critical writing about the role these theaters play in building community shows how these artist groups are forged by working in and with their communities over time. Ensemble theater is discovered to be neither alternative nor marginalized, but vanguard, a natural evolution of the movement that propelled regional theater "away from the commercial restraints of New York and toward a theater expressive of the rich diversity of American culture." It is theater that is politically and emotionally charged. It can be cathartic, healing, and has a proven ability to effect social change. The book Performing Communities is a project of the Community Arts Network. It has been created from interviews, analytical essays, and play excerpts from the "Grassroots Theater Ensemble Research Project," an inquiry into American ensemble theaters that have been working in communities for 10 to 35 years. Although originating from a scholarly report, the language has been edited for a popular audience and offers an intimate glimpse into each local ensemble community. The book will appeal to followers of contemporary and popular theater, social change activists, community building specialists, and a public curious about cultural development in the United States.

Community of Peace

Community of Peace PDF Author: Christopher Courtheyn
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 082298878X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Achieving peace is often thought about in terms of military operations or state negotiations. Yet it also happens at the grassroots level, where communities envision and create peace on their own. The San José de Apartadó Peace Community of small-scale farmers has not waited for a top-down peace treaty. Instead, they have actively resisted forced displacement and co-optation by guerrillas, army soldiers, and paramilitaries for two decades in Colombia’s war-torn Urabá region. Based on ethnographic action research over a twelve-year period, Christopher Courtheyn illuminates the community’s understandings of peace and territorial practices against ongoing assassinations and displacement. San José’s peace through autonomy reflects an alternative to traditional modes of politics practiced through electoral representation and armed struggle. Courtheyn explores the meaning of peace and territory, while also interrogating the role of race in Colombia’s war and the relationship between memory and peace. Amid the widespread violence of today’s global crisis, Community of Peace illustrates San José’s rupture from the logics of colonialism and capitalism through the construction of political solidarity and communal peace.

Performing Communities

Performing Communities PDF Author: Robert H. Leonard
Publisher: New Village Press
ISBN: 1613320884
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Ensemble theater is one of the vibrant, meaningful American performance forms today. It's more than art- it's a social movement. Ensemble theater is one of the hottest, most engaging American performance forms today. It's more than art- it's a movement. Performing Communities is an inquiry into a genre of theater that arises from and empowers the grassroots. The book profiles established ensemble groups from inner-city Los Angeles, small-town northern California, African-American South, multicultural southern Texas, low-income central Appalachia, economically struggling South Bronx New York, and cross-continental Native America. This compendium of critical writing about the role these theaters play in building community shows how these artist groups are forged by working in and with their communities over time. Ensemble theater is discovered to be neither alternative nor marginalized, but vanguard, a natural evolution of the movement that propelled regional theater "away from the commercial restraints of New York and toward a theater expressive of the rich diversity of American culture." It is theater that is politically and emotionally charged. It can be cathartic, healing, and has a proven ability to effect social change. The book Performing Communities is a project of the Community Arts Network. It has been created from interviews, analytical essays, and play excerpts from the "Grassroots Theater Ensemble Research Project," an inquiry into American ensemble theaters that have been working in communities for 10 to 35 years. Although originating from a scholarly report, the language has been edited for a popular audience and offers an intimate glimpse into each local ensemble community. The book will appeal to followers of contemporary and popular theater, social change activists, community building specialists, and a public curious about cultural development in the United States.

Local Acts

Local Acts PDF Author: Jan Cohen-Cruz
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813537584
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
An eclectic mix of art, theatre, dance, politics, experimentation, and ritual, community-based performance has become an increasingly popular art movement in the United States. Forged by the collaborative efforts of professional artists and local residents, this unique field brings performance together with a range of political, cultural, and social projects, such as community-organizing, cultural self-representation, and education. Local Acts presents a long-overdue survey of community-based performance from its early roots, through its flourishing during the politically-turbulent 1960s, to present-day popular culture. Drawing on nine case studies, including groups such as the African American Junebug Productions, the Appalachian Roadside Theater, and the Puerto Rican Teatro Pregones, Jan Cohen-Cruz provides detailed descriptions of performances and processes, first-person stories, and analysis. She shows how the ritual side of these endeavors reinforces a sense of community identification while the aesthetic side enables local residents to transgress cultural norms, to question group habits, and to incorporate a level of craft that makes the work accessible to individuals beyond any one community. The book concludes by exploring how community-based performance transcends even national boundaries, connecting the local United States with international theater and cultural movements.

Performing Communities

Performing Communities PDF Author: Robert H. Leonard
Publisher: New Village Press
ISBN: 0976605449
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Performing Communities is an inquiry into ensemble theater of inner-city Los Angeles, small-town northern California, African-American South, multicultural southern Texas, low-income central Appalachia, economically struggling South Bronx New York and cross-continental Native America. This compendium of critical writing about the role these theaters play in building community shows how these artist groups are not only affected by but forged by working in and with their communities over time. Grassroot ensemble theater is discovered to be neither alternative nor marginalized, but vanguard, a natural evolution of the movement that propelled regional theater "away from the commercial restraints of New York and toward a theater expressive of the rich diversity of American culture." Robert H. Leonard is Professor of Theatre Arts at Virginia Tech and former artistic director of the Road Company, an acclaimed ensemble theater that produced two dozen original plays reflecting the issues of Central Appalachia. Ann Kilkelly is Professor of Theater Arts and Women's Studies at Virginia Tech and a nationally recognized scholar and performer who created the Diversity Training Laboratory that uses performance techniques to examine diversity issues. Linda Frye Burnham is co-director of Art in the Public Interest and the Community Arts Network. She founded High Performance magazine and is editor, with Steven Durland, of The Citizen Artist: 20 Years of Art in the Public Arena. Jan Cohen-Cruz is Director of Theatre Studies in the NYU Tisch School of the Arts. She is author of Local Acts: Community-based Performance In The United States (Rutgers University Press 2005).

Performing Cultural Tourism

Performing Cultural Tourism PDF Author: Susan Carson
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1351703900
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Book Description
While experiential staging is well documented in tourism studies, not enough has been written about the diverse types of experiences and expectations that visitors bring to the tourist space and how communities respond to, or indeed challenge, these expectations. This book brings together new ideas about cultural experiences and how communities, creative producers, and visitors can productively engage with competing interests and notions of experience and authenticity in the tourist environment. Part I considers the experiences of communities in meeting the needs of cultural tourists in an international context. Part II analyses the relationships between individualcultural tourists, the community, and digital technology. Finally, Part III responds to new methodologies in relation to interactions between government and regional policy and community development. Focusing on the way in which communities and visitors ‘perform’ new forms of cultural tourism, Performing Cultural Tourism is aimed at undergraduate students, researchers, academics, and a diverse range of professionals at both private and government levels that are seeking to develop policies and business plans that recognize and respond to new interests in contemporary tourism.

Community Performance: An Introduction

Community Performance: An Introduction PDF Author: Petra Kuppers
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134164041
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
Community Performance: An Introduction is a comprehensive and accessible practice-based primer for students and practitioners of community arts, dance and theatre. It is both a classroom-friendly textbook and a handbook for the practitioner, perfectly answering the needs of a field where teaching is orientated around practice. Offering a toolkit for students interested in running community arts groups, this book includes: international case-studies and first person stories by practitioners and participants sample exercises, both practical and reflective study questions excerpts of illustrative material from theorists and practitioners. This book can be used as a standalone text or together with its companion volume, The Community Performance Reader, to provide an excellent introduction to the field of community arts practice. Petra Kuppers has drawn on her vast personal experience and a wealth of inspiring case studies to create a book that will engage and help to develop the reflective community arts practitioner.

Shakespeare and Community Performance

Shakespeare and Community Performance PDF Author: Katherine Steele Brokaw
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031332679
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
This book explores how productions of Shakespearean plays create meaning in specific communities, with special attention to issues of access, adaptation, and activism. Instead of focusing on large professional companies, it analyzes performances put on by community theatres and grassroots companies, and in applied drama projects. It looks at Shakespearean productions created by marginalized populations in Greater London, Harlem, and Los Angeles, a Hamlet staged in the remote Faroe Islands, and eco-theatre made in California’s Yosemite National Park. The book investigates why different communities perform Shakespeare, and what challenges, opportunities, and triumphs accompany the processes of theatrical production for both the artists and the communities in which they are embedded.

Local Acts

Local Acts PDF Author: Jan Cohen-Cruz
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 9780813535500
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
The author surveys community-based performance in the US from its roots to present-day popular culture. She describes performances and processes, and shows how ritualism reinforces community identification while aestheticism enables locals to transgress cultural norms.

Performing Democracy

Performing Democracy PDF Author: Susan C. Haedicke
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 9780472067602
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
International perspectives on a form of activist, participatory theater with marginalized groups in cities around the world

Community Performance

Community Performance PDF Author: Petra Kuppers
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429590032
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
Community Performance: An Introduction is a comprehensive and accessible practice-based primer for students and practitioners of community arts, dance, and theatre, offering reflection on the ethical issues inherent to the field. It is both a classroom-friendly textbook and a handbook for the practitioner, perfectly answering the needs of a field where teaching is orientated around practice. Offering a toolkit for students interested in running community arts groups or community performance events, this book includes: international case studies and first-person stories by practitioners and participants sample exercises, both practical and reflective study questions excerpts of illustrative material from theorists and practitioners This second edition has been completely revised with over 25% new content to bring the book up to date with developments in both society and performance, including the rise of social media, updates in the contexts of social justice, new standards and norms in social practice, and the changing faces of funding, evaluation, and professional development. The book can be used as a standalone text or together with its companion volume, Community Performance: A Reader, to provide an excellent introduction to the field of community arts practice.