Colonial-Era Caribbean Theatre

Colonial-Era Caribbean Theatre PDF Author: Julia Prest
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 1837644810
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Cutting across academic boundaries, this volume brings together scholars from different disciplines who have explored together the richness and complexity of colonial-era Caribbean theatre. The volume offers a series of original essays that showcase individual expertise in light of broader group discussions. Asking how we can research effectively and write responsibly about colonial-era Caribbean theatre today, our primary concern is methodology. Key questions are examined via new research into individual case studies on topics ranging from Cuban blackface, commedia dell’arte in Suriname and Jamaican oratorio to travelling performers and the influence of the military and of enslaved people on theatre in Saint-Domingue. Specifically, we ask what particular methodological challenges we as scholars of colonial-era Caribbean theatre face and what methodological solutions we can find to meet those challenges. Areas addressed include our linguistic limitations in the face of Caribbean multilingualism; issues raised by national, geographical or imperial approaches to the field; the vexed relationship between metropole and colony; and, crucially, gaps in the archive. We also ask what implications our findings have for theatre performance today – a question that has led to the creation of a new work set in a colonial theatre and outlined in the volume’s concluding chapter.

Colonial-Era Caribbean Theatre

Colonial-Era Caribbean Theatre PDF Author: Julia Prest
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 1837644810
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 280

Get Book Here

Book Description
Cutting across academic boundaries, this volume brings together scholars from different disciplines who have explored together the richness and complexity of colonial-era Caribbean theatre. The volume offers a series of original essays that showcase individual expertise in light of broader group discussions. Asking how we can research effectively and write responsibly about colonial-era Caribbean theatre today, our primary concern is methodology. Key questions are examined via new research into individual case studies on topics ranging from Cuban blackface, commedia dell’arte in Suriname and Jamaican oratorio to travelling performers and the influence of the military and of enslaved people on theatre in Saint-Domingue. Specifically, we ask what particular methodological challenges we as scholars of colonial-era Caribbean theatre face and what methodological solutions we can find to meet those challenges. Areas addressed include our linguistic limitations in the face of Caribbean multilingualism; issues raised by national, geographical or imperial approaches to the field; the vexed relationship between metropole and colony; and, crucially, gaps in the archive. We also ask what implications our findings have for theatre performance today – a question that has led to the creation of a new work set in a colonial theatre and outlined in the volume’s concluding chapter.

Colonial-Era Caribbean Theatre

Colonial-Era Caribbean Theatre PDF Author: Julia Prest
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781837645039
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Cutting across academic boundaries, this volume brings together scholars from different disciplines who have explored together the richness and complexity of colonial-era Caribbean theatre. The volume offers a series of original essays that showcase individual expertise in light of broader group discussions. Asking how we can research effectively and write responsibly about colonial-era Caribbean theatre today, our primary concern is methodology. Key questions are examined via new research into individual case studies on topics ranging from Cuban blackface, commedia dell'arte in Suriname and Jamaican oratorio to travelling performers and the influence of the military and of enslaved people on theatre in Saint-Domingue. Specifically, we ask what particular methodological challenges we as scholars of colonial-era Caribbean theatre face and what methodological solutions we can find to meet those challenges. Areas addressed include our linguistic limitations in the face of Caribbean multilingualism; issues raised by national, geographical or imperial approaches to the field; the vexed relationship between metropole and colony; and, crucially, gaps in the archive. We also ask what implications our findings have for theatre performance today - a question that has led to the creation of a new work set in a colonial theatre and outlined in the volume's concluding chapter.

Public Theatre and the Enslaved People of Colonial Saint-Domingue

Public Theatre and the Enslaved People of Colonial Saint-Domingue PDF Author: Julia Prest
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031226917
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
The French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) was home to one of the richest public theatre traditions of the colonial-era Caribbean. This book examines the relationship between public theatre and the enslaved people of Saint-Domingue—something that is generally given short shrift owing to a perceived lack of documentation. Here, a range of materials and methodologies are used to explore pressing questions including the ‘mitigated spectatorship’ of the enslaved, portrayals of enslaved people in French and Creole repertoire, the contributions of enslaved people to theatre-making, and shifting attitudes during the revolutionary era. The book demonstrates that slavery was no mere backdrop to this portion of theatre history but an integral part of its story. It also helps recover the hidden experiences of some of the enslaved individuals who became entangled in that story.

An Introduction to Post-Colonial Theatre

An Introduction to Post-Colonial Theatre PDF Author: Brian Crow
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521567220
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
In this book Brian Crow and Chris Banfield provide an introduction to post-colonial theatre by concentrating on the work of major dramatists from the Third World and subordinated cultures in the first world. Crow and Banfield consider the plays of such writers as Wole Soyinka and Athol Fugard and his collaborators from Africa; Derek Walcott from the West Indies; August Wilson and Jack Davis, who write from and about the experience of Black communities in the USA and Australia respectively; and Badal Sircar and Girish Karnad from India. Although these dramatists reflect diverse cultures and histories, they share the common condition of cultural subjection or oppression, which has shaped their theatres. Each chapter contains an informative list of primary source material and further reading about the dramatists. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of theatre and cultural history.

Colonialism and Slavery in Performance

Colonialism and Slavery in Performance PDF Author: Jeffrey M. Leichman
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781800348042
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
Colonialism and Slavery in Performance brings together original archival research with recent critical perspectives to argue for the importance of theatrical culture to the understanding of the French Caribbean sugar colonies in the eighteenth century. Fifteen English-language essays from both established and emerging scholars apply insights and methodologies from performance studies and theatre history in order to propose a new understanding of Old Regime culture and identity as a trans-Atlantic continuum that includes the Antillean possessions whose slave labour provided enormous wealth to the metropole. Carefully documented studies of performances in Saint-Domingue, the most prosperous French colony, illustrate how the crucible of a brutally racialized colonial space gave rise to a new French identity by adapting many of the cherished theatrical traditions that colonists imported directly from the mainland, resulting in a Creole performance culture that reflected the strong influence of African practices brought to the islands by plantation slaves. Other essays focus on how European theatregoers reconciled the contradiction inherent in the eighteenth century's progressive embrace of human rights, with an increasing dependence on the economic spoils of slavery, thus illustrating how the stage served as a means to negotiate new tensions within "French" identity, in the metropole as well as in the colonies. In the final section of the volume, essays explore the enduring legacy of the Old Regime in contemporary Antillean stage culture, illustrating how performance traditions continue to structure the understanding of what it means to be French in France's former Atlantic slave colonies.

From Plantation to Paradise?

From Plantation to Paradise? PDF Author: David M. Powers
Publisher: Michigan State University Press
ISBN: 9781611861204
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In 1764 the first printing press was established in the French Caribbean colonies, launching the official documentation of operas and plays performed there, and marking the inauguration of the first theatre in the colonies. A rigorous study of pre–French Revolution performance practices in Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), Powers’s book examines the elaborate system of social casting in these colonies; the environments in which nonwhite artists emerged; and both negative and positive contributions of the Catholic Church and the military to operas and concerts produced in the colonies. The author also explores the level of participation of nonwhites in these productions, as well as theatre architecture, décor, repertoire, seating arrangements, and types of audiences. The status of nonwhite artists in colonial society; the range of operas in which they performed; their accomplishments, praise, criticism; and the use of créole texts and white actors/singers à visage noirs (with blackened faces) present a clear picture of French operatic culture in these colonies. Approaching the French Revolution, the study concludes with an examination of the ways in which colonial opera was affected by slave uprisings, the French Revolution, the emergence of “patriotic theatres,” and their role in fostering support for the king, as well as the impact on subsequent operas produced in the colonies and in the United States.

America in the French Imaginary, 1789-1914

America in the French Imaginary, 1789-1914 PDF Author: Diana R. Hallman
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1783277009
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 410

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Book Description
Following the American Revolution, French observers often viewed the United States as a laboratory for the forging of new practices of liberté and égalité, in affinity with and divergence from France's own Revolutionary ideals and experiences. The volume examines French views through musical/theatrical portrayals of the American Revolution and Republic, soundscapes of the Statue of Liberty, and homages to the glorified figures of Washington, Franklin and Lafayette. Essays investigate paradoxical depictions of slavery in the United States and French Caribbean colonies of 'Amérique'. French critiques of American music and musicians, including the reception of Americanized or Creolized adaptations of European art traditions as well as American popular music and dance, are also presented. The subject of race features prominently in French interpretations of American music and identity. These interpretations see French constructions of the Indigenous American and African American "exotic" that intersect with tropes of noble, pastoral savagery, menacing barbarism, and the "civilizing" potency of French culture. The French reinterpretation of African American music and dance reveals both a revulsion of Black alterity and an attraction to the expressive freedom, and even subversiveness, of these "foreign" forms of music and dance. Contributions include essays by music, dance, theatre and opera scholars, and the volume will be essential reading for students and scholars of these disciplines.

Culture and Identity in African and Caribbean Theatre

Culture and Identity in African and Caribbean Theatre PDF Author: Osita Okagbue
Publisher: Adonis & Abbey Publishers Ltd
ISBN: 1912234262
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
What connects Africa and the Caribbean is trans-Atlantic slavery which transported numerous sons and daughters of Africa to the plantations of the New World in the service of Western European capitalism. Because of this shared experience of trans-Atlantic slavery and European colonialism, issues of culture and identity are major concerns for African and Caribbean playwrights. Slavery and colonialism had involved systematic acts of cultural denigration, de-humanisation and loss of freedom, which left imprints on the collective psyches of the colonised Africans and enslaved peoples of African descent in the Caribbean. Both experiences brought intense cultural and psychic dislocations which still impact in various ways on the lives of Africans and peoples of African descent around the world. African and Caribbean playwrights try to help their peoples regain their dignities by affirming their cultures, histories and identities. The book focuses on the similarities and differences between Caribbean theatre and the theatre of sub-Saharan Africa, showing how identities and cultures are negotiated and affirmed in each case.

The Cambridge Guide to African and Caribbean Theatre

The Cambridge Guide to African and Caribbean Theatre PDF Author: Martin Banham
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521411394
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Comprehensive alphabetical guide to theatre in Africa and the Caribbean: national essays and entries on countries and performers.

Post-Colonial Drama

Post-Colonial Drama PDF Author: Helen Gilbert
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134876998
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 565

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Book Description
Post-Colonial Drama is the first full-length study to address the ways in which performance has been instrumental in resisting the continuing effects of imperialism. It brings to bear the latest theoretical approaches from post-colonial and performance studies to a range of plays from Australia, Africa, Canada, New Zealand, the Caribbean and other former colonial regions. Some of the major topics discussed in Post-Colonial Drama include: * the interactions of post-colonial and performance theories * the post-colonial re-stagings of language and history * the specific enactments of ritual and carnival * the theatrical citations of the post-colonial body Post-Colonial Drama combines a rich intersection of theoretical approaches with close attention to a wide range of performance texts.