Discovery Channel said about the author: "In the rarified world of aerialists, Tino Wallenda is royalty." With the eighth generation of the Wallendas now in the act and hundreds of years of spectacular circus tradition to uphold, the family has secured not only a place in history, but also a place in the Guinness Book of World Records...
How the lives and labors of nineteenth-century circus elephants shaped the entertainment industry. Consider the career of an enduring if controversial icon of American entertainment: the genial circus elephant. In Entertaining Elephants Susan Nance examines elephant behavior—drawing on the scientific literature of animal cognition, learning, and communications—to offer a study of elephants as actors (rather than objects) in American circus entertainment between 1800 and 1940. By developing a deeper understanding of animal behavior, Nance asserts, we can more fully explain the common history of all species. Entertaining Elephants is the first account that uses research on animal welfare, health, and cognition to interpret the historical record, examining how both circus people and elephants struggled behind the scenes to meet the profit necessities of the entertainment business. The book does not claim that elephants understood, endorsed, or resisted the world of show business as a human cultural or business practice, but it does speak of elephants rejecting the conditions of their experience. They lived in a kind of parallel reality in the circus, one that was defined by their interactions with people, other elephants, horses, bull hooks, hay, and the weather. Nance’s study informs and complicates contemporary debates over human interactions with animals in entertainment and beyond, questioning the idea of human control over animals and people's claims to speak for them. As sentient beings, these elephants exercised agency, but they had no way of understanding the human cultures that created their captivity, and they obviously had no claim on (human) social and political power. They often lived lives of apparent desperation.
An authoritative introduction to the specialised histories of the modern circus, its unique aesthetics, and its contemporary manifestations and scholarship, from its origins in commercial equestrian performance, to contemporary inflections of circus arts in major international festivals, educational environments, and social justice settings.
"Mary Ellen Mark fell in love with the Indian circus in 1969, during her first trip to India. As she watched a huge hippopotamus walk around the ring with its mouth wide open, wearing a pink tutu, she was struck by the beauty and innocence of the show. She returned to India many times, and in 1989 and 1990 she devoted six months to photographing eighteen circuses, following them around the continent by train, plane, van, and auto-rickshaw. Secretive, highly competitive, and each a closed, self-sufficient society, the circuses embody what Mark calls "a poetry and a craziness that are still uncorrupted, and honest, and pure."" "Beautifully printed in tritone, this remarkable collection of photographs captures the texture of circus life outside of the ring - exhausting, humorous, poignant, and often bizarre - as well as the affection and devotion that the performers have for each other and their animals." "Indian Circus is documentary photography at its finest. The photographs are not only compelling portraits of the performers, but also eloquent and poetic narratives about life in the Indian circus."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
The result of more than a decade of careful planning, designing, and building, the newly opened Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art pays tribute to nearly a century's worth of industry, labor, and commerce. Located in the college town of North Adams in a series of old mill buildings that once housed a textile factory and later an electrical company, MASS MoCA is a stunning example of intelligent, civic-minded architectural gentrification and visionary planning.The story of how MASS MoCA came to be -- from its conception in 1986 to its opening in the summer of 1999 -- is eloquently told in words and pictures in this beautifully designed volume. More than 100 black and white and color photographs document the painstaking transformation of a 19th-century mill complex, listed on the national Historic Register, into a museum that would house the world's largest collection of contemporary art. Museum Director Joseph Thompson offers a fascinating history of the site and his struggles to get the project off the ground, as well as a curatorial essay that reveals how the AIA Award-winning complex blurs the traditional lines between production and exhibition space to offer unique opportunities for artists and visitors alike. A unique and triumphant story of successful interaction between postindustrial concerns and historic preservation. Mill to Museum is a lesson in how architects, artists, citizens and government can work together to transform not only a building-but the very way we experience art and architecture.
Holds special interest for marine history and New England history enthusiasts; those with interest in photography; art history students and professionals.This unique portrait of New England's yesterdays features vintage photographs from the New Bedford Whaling Museum collection. Recounting the history of photography in the New Bedford area between 1845 and 1920, A Window Back paints an intimate portrait of a bygone era, portraying the working waterfront, farms, city scapes, and people at leisure. It takes us inside the studio and aboard whaling ships. These brief glimpses represent and illuminate our past, giving us a window back on time.
