The integration of dance as a dramatic element in broadway musical theatre

This study traces the development and growth of dance on the Broadway stage and the parallel growth of the effectiveness of choreography in enhancing the musical Theatre libretto. The study surveys the origins and early evolution of stage dance in the United States from 1775 to the introduction of ballet choreography in 1922. It concludes with an examination of Selected scripts which use choreography to dramatize the musical Theatre libretto, 1922 to 1990

Teaching approaches to learn theoretical contents in Physical Education: A study about contour lines

Producción CientíficaPurpose: Fostering student’s map reading skills, specifically understanding contour lines, is a challenging area of the Physical Education curriculum. Method: 238 students in their first year of secondary education (Mage = 13.1) were randomly assigned to one of these experimental conditions in physical education classes: (a) Teaching intervention 1 (TI-1): integrating the concept of contour lines into practical sessions of acrobatic gymnastics; (b) TI-2: theoretical sessions regarding contour lines; (c) Active control (AC): reading an introductory text about topographic maps; and two passive controls (PC) without any intervention, (d) PC-1 and (e) PC-2. Results: All students, except for PC-2, improved their knowledge of contour lines. Nevertheless, performing corporal figures (in TI-1) and employing pointing and tracing gestures (in TI-2) helped students to correctly resolve a broader range of tasks. Conclusions: The results highlighted the benefits of teaching proposals that favor movement and the experience of the body

The Art of Theatre in Nineteenth-Century America: George L. Fox, Pantomime and Artaud

This article argues that, through specific stagings orchestrated in the pantomimist’s art, George Lafayette Fox demonstrates a consciousness of staging and of theatricality that presages the blatant theatricalities of twentieth-century theatre and theatre theory. The Theatre and Its Double is essential to assessing theatre’s response to theatricality, specifically in its awareness of non-verbal strategies. My discussion of pantomime founds itself on a critical engagement with the concept of a total theatre, of gestures, physicality, movement and the performance of a theatrical ‘language’ beyond words. I argue that the theatrical language of Fox’s pantomime exhibits dramatic dimensions that appealed to the edgy rebellious urges of their audiences, the performances of the white-face clown articulating an awareness of cultural anxieties, responding to and participating in the formation of the social response to political agenda and debate. Pantomime, with its glory in excess, its incipient display of anti-establishmentarianism, its fluidity and emphasis on show, contributed to the development of American theatre as a dynamic form. Providing a concrete space with its ‘concrete language, intended for the senses and independent of speech,’ (Artaud, p.37), Fox’s gestural theatre can shed additional light on theoretical approaches to mime

The Acrobatic Body in Ancient Greek Society

In this thesis I collate the textual, artistic, and material evidence for acrobatics in sport and spectacle in Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic Greece, and analyze gymnastic performances with regard to their respective socio-cultural contexts. I develop the theoretical perspective that all body movement is socially qualified in order to demonstrate how the extreme manipulations of an acrobatic body carry particular social meaning: in sport, the male acrobatic body approaches superhumanism, and in spectacle the female acrobatic body approaches subhumanism. I argue, on the one hand, that men’s tumbling took place at the early Panathenaia festival in Athens, both in martial dances and in competitions featuring springboards and equestrian acrobatics. Artistic representations emphasize a participant’s controlled aerialism while he wears armour, and thereby express his prowess as a warrior-athlete. On the other hand, acrobatics was also a kind of spectacular ‘wonder-making’, and I argue that the abnormal physical alterity shown by women’s acrobatic bodies rendered the performer a marginalized and unnatural ‘other’. I use two particular feats, namely, tumbling among upright swords and acrobatic stunts on a potter’s wheel, as case studies for my argument that the spectacular acrobat embodied her social inferiority. In this thesis I offer the first complete treatment of Greek acrobatics in which careful consideration is given to the relationship between social realities, text, and art. It is also the first to use sociological theories of the body as a method for approaching ancient Greek representations of acrobats’ extreme physicality

Citing musicality: Performance knowledge in the Gardzienice archive

This article draws on previously published multimedia documents to explore the notion of musicality in the work of Włodzimierz Staniewski and the Gardzienice Centre for Theatre Practices. In addition to offering a close analysis of several documented moments – including performances, work demonstrations, expeditions and gatherings – it tests the ability of multimedia documentation to capture performance knowledge, arguing that the work of Gardzienice is a paradigmatic example of ‘practice as research’. Taking the archive as a crucial dimension of the dissemination of knowledge, the article uses multimedia citation to examine the specific contributions of Gardzienice in the context of musicality as a relation between the theatrical and the musical. The article demonstrates that the stability of the archive allows for a detailed explication of performance knowledge in a way that is not possible from live performance alone

‘Show Yourself More Human…’: An Exploration of Agency in the Essercizi per Gravicembalo by Domenico Scarlatti

Discussions of Domenico Scarlatti’s keyboard sonatas are scaturient with agential metaphors; scholars invoke crowds, instrumentalists, street-performers, and live improvisation. Indeed, the sonatas are described as if they possess a personality, which is sometimes superimposed onto the composer himself, or are alive with human activity. Whilst scholars are conscious of the vivid imagery so often used, few tackle the subject from the perspective of intra-musical agency or consider why the sonatas seem so human. Drawing on theories of agency and music cognition I set out how the sonatas evoke human activity through musical topics and how musical gestures can replicate physical movement. To this end I propose that certain motivic figures can be conceived of as schema of acrobatic motion, capturing a physical phenomenon within music. I also investigate how the structure of individual sonatas can evoke a musical agent navigating a virtual world, and how musical tension can replicate human emotion. To explore why the sonatas seem alive, I examine how figures within the sonata seem to be spontaneous, and suggest that we perceive the unpredictable musical gestures to be the actions of a musical agent. Ultimately, however, music is brought into existence by a performer, and so I consider the role of the performer and how they embody the tensions implied within the musical work. I conclude with a historical overview of the sonatas and consider the significance of their physicality

Music, rhythmic gymnastics and expressiveness: an artistic performance

In rhythmic gymnastics, we appreciate the brilliant success in a true performing art whose sensitively expressive movements of great technical skill integrated into the music result in an exquisite and refined performance that involves body plasticity, musical receptivity, feelings and emotions. The practice of gymnastics significantly contributes to the development of body movements and musicality, boosting motor and artistic abilities by the acquisition of improved skills for jumping, running and practising different exercises. This study aimed to investigate how music is important in the development of rhythmic gymnastics. A literature review was carried out, including research from 2016 to 2021, published in Google Academic. We emphasise how the body action perfectly integrated into the music is essential for the artistic representation of an enchanting plastic, musical and grandiose beauty. We understand that encouraging physical exercise, especially artistic rhythmic gymnastics, is very important for the development of essential qualities for the individual, such as physical, behavioural, artistic and emotional attributes.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Music, rhythmic gymnastics and expressiveness: an artistic performance

In rhythmic gymnastics, we appreciate the brilliant success in a true performing art whose sensitively expressive movements of great technical skill integrated into the music result in an exquisite and refined performance that involves body plasticity, musical receptivity, feelings and emotions. The practice of gymnastics significantly contributes to the development of body movements and musicality, boosting motor and artistic abilities by the acquisition of improved skills for jumping, running and practising different exercises. This study aimed to investigate how music is important in the development of rhythmic gymnastics. A literature review was carried out, including research from 2016 to 2021, published in Google Academic. We emphasise how the body action perfectly integrated into the music is essential for the artistic representation of an enchanting plastic, musical and grandiose beauty. We understand that encouraging physical exercise, especially artistic rhythmic gymnastics, is very important for the development of essential qualities for the individual, such as physical, behavioural, artistic and emotional attributes.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Rough-and-tumble play as a window on animal communication.

Rough-and-tumble play (RT) is a widespread phenomenon in mammals. Since it involves competition, whereby one animal attempts to gain advantage over another, RT runs the risk of escalation to serious fighting. Competition is typically curtailed by some degree of cooperation and different signals help negotiate potential mishaps during RT. This review provides a framework for such signals, showing that they range along two dimensions: one from signals borrowed from other functional contexts to those that are unique to play, and the other from purely emotional expressions to highly cognitive (intentional) constructions. Some animal taxa have exaggerated the emotional and cognitive interplay aspects of play signals, yielding admixtures of communication that have led to complex forms of RT. This complexity has been further exaggerated in some lineages by the development of specific novel gestures that can be used to negotiate playful mood and entice reluctant partners. Play-derived gestures may provide new mechanisms by which more sophisticated communication forms can evolve. Therefore, RT and playful communication provide a window into the study of social cognition, emotional regulation and the evolution of communication systems