Leisure, War and Marginal Communities: Travelling Showpeople and Outdoor Pleasure-Seeking in Britain 1889-1945.

This thesis investigates the community of nomadic showpeople who provided entertainments and amusements as part of travelling fairs. The primary focus of the thesis is the development of the relationship between this marginal community and local and national authorities between 1889 and 1945. As part of this investigation the relationship between showpeople and settled British society is also examined. Exploring the physical space of the fairground is vital as this forms the encounter between showpeople and the public. The fair as a form of public leisure informs outside perceptions and understandings of the community behind it. The thesis provides an overview of travelling fairs and associated issues up to the 1880s, before analysing the impact of attempts at temporary dwelling legislation. These attempts proved a formative experience; causing a disparate showland community to amalgamate in the politically active union of The Showmen’s Guild. The thesis explores how this organisation was able to meet the legislative and practical challenges of the First World War. Through negotiation with authorities the Guild secured the viability of the showland business. In addition, they emphasised although separated by their commercial nomadism, travelling showpeople firmly considered themselves part of a British national identity. This concept is revisited in the final chapter which explores the experience of travelling showpeople during the Second World War. In addition to assessing how showmen were able to adapt to noise and lighting restrictions, the chapter also assesses the contributions of showland to the collective war effort, and to what extent the community was recognised as part of the collective narrative of ‘The People’s War’. The third and fourth chapters of the thesis explore the travelling fair in the interwar period which saw local authorities attempting to exercise increasing control over fairgrounds through rent and relocation, but also saw the significance of the fair as a public leisure pursuit confirmed. The fair was presented and perceived as a uniquely British form of leisure, with close links to rural and urban working class traditions. Overall the thesis concludes this unique group were transformed in the period assessed. The creation of the Showman’s Guild in 1889 was a crucial step towards this group developing from a fragmented and misunderstood community, into a recognised body of commercial professionals. Alongside an improving business relationship with local and national authority, the thesis demonstrates the fairground remained a relevant and popular public recreation throughout the first half of the twentieth century

Difficult Fun: Fairground as heritage, heritage as fairground

This thesis examines the British travelling fairground as a unique tradition and ongoing practice of the past, present and future, to create a wider dialogue with our understanding of heritage practices. The fairground is approached as a complex assemblage of objects and affects that has a sinuous historical trail, making its relationship to heritage practices a valuable insight in the wider environment of embracing our past. A key aspect of my work looks at, listens to, and explores the fairground and develops a detailed ontology of objects that set off a network of affects, making a major contribution to how the fairground is understood. This is then set out in a diachronic arrangement as the essence of change is investigated, understood as overlapping cycles connected to the content of the fairground, the space of the fairground, the music of the fairground, and the close synergy between accelerated popular culture and the visual presentation of the fairground. Central to this is the audience demographic, and the issue of when we most appreciate the fairground, and when we no longer feel a part of the fairground. This provides an understanding of our heritage seeking behaviour and expectations. Heritage of the fairground is identified in five key contexts: the static museum collection, the steam rally movement, the specialist vintage travelling fair, the living museum (examples that incorporate a period fairground), and the specific re-creation of a seaside amusement park. These heritage efforts are investigated with site reports analysed using a wide toolbox: spatial practice, situational aesthetics, textual analysis, and audience granularity (including the protagonist who sets up and controls the collection). Drawing on and synthesising the fieldwork from the fairground heritage sectors, I present case studies around notions of authenticity, vernacular flows, space and building, and future planning considerations. The thesis concludes by illuminating points of dialogue to the wider heritage field, addressing the growing uncertainty around the convergence of the museum and the theme park

European Roma

This book, designed as a resource for scholars, educators, activists and non-specialist readers, presents the results of new research on the role of Romani groups in European culture and society since the nineteenth century. Its specific focus is on the ways in which Romani actors, in their interactions with non-Romanies, have contributed to shaping Europe’s public spaces. Twelve chapters recount the experiences and accomplishments of individuals and families, from across Europe (England, France, Spain, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Romania and Finland) and Canada. All based on new research, and maintaining a focus on the real lives and activities of Romani people rather than on the perspective of the majority societies, these studies exemplify the creative presence of Romani people in the fields of politics, economics and culture. We see them as writers, artists and performers, political activists and resistance fighters, traders and entrepreneurs, circus and cinema managers and purveyors of popular science. Sensitive to the ambivalent position from which Roma act, the cases are linked and contextualized by a general introduction and by section introductions written by leading scholars of Romani studies with expertise in history, ethnography, musicology, literary and discourse studies and visual culture. The volume is richly illustrated, including many images that have never been published before, and includes an extensive bibliography / guide to further reading. Contributors to the volume: Begoña Barrera, Beatriz Carrillo de los Reyes, Malte Gasche, Paweł Lechowski, Anna G. Piotrowska, Laurence Prempain, Juan Pro, Eve Rosenhaft, Carolina García Sanz, María Sierra, and Tamara West

From Nascar to Cirque du Soleil: Lessons in Audience Development

Examines marketing trends and principles in entertainment and performance. Case studies include nonprofit arts organizations, mega-concert promoters, for-profit entertainment conglomerates, sports promoters and religious organizations

Rapt/Wrapped Listening: The Aesthetics of “Surround Sound”

This essay is prompted by “surround sound,” the sonic results of which have been evident in cinemas since the late 1970s and the encoding for which, in the form of Dolby 5.1 on the soundtracks of DVDs, since the turn of the century has been fairly ubiquitous. By way of background, the essay deals in turn with the physical nature of three-dimensional listening and with the history of stereophonic sound as manifest both in the cinema and on LP recordings. More to the point, the essay deals with the aesthetic differences (not just perceptual but also affective) between listening to three-dimensional sounds in real life situations and listening to re-creations of those sounds, via a Dolby system or otherwise, in the privacy and comfort of one’s home. Playing on the homophonic adjectives in its title, the essay reflects on why sometimes we give more rapt attention to artificial versions of “surround sound” than to the genuine stereophonic sound in which we are literally wrapped almost on a daily basis

Casco Bay Weekly : 3 August 1989

https://digitalcommons.portlandlibrary.com/cbw_1989/1031/thumbnail.jp

Casco Bay Weekly : 10 August 1989

https://digitalcommons.portlandlibrary.com/cbw_1989/1032/thumbnail.jp

American Square Dance Vol. 58, No. 10 (Oct. 2003)

Monthly square dance magazine that began publication in 1945