This book is written for all lovers of the performing arts, especially those who love Kathakali, the dance drama of Kerala, the southern state in India. While other texts have been written about the history of the dance drama in English, this book uniquely brings in Shakespearean plays and characters, comparing them to the stories and characters in Kathakali to give it a completely new perspective.
This book demonstrates that people writing and creating characters almost 6,000 miles apart, and in different centuries, have a lot more in common than one might expect. It examines the day-to-day themes appearing in two epics, The Ramayanam and The Maha Bharatham, and some of Shakespeare’s plays (without entering into the realm of philosophy). The book reveals that whatever backgrounds people may have, they ultimately tend to tackle life in very similar ways, and this claim is substantiated with many pertinent examples. The perspectives presented in this book will be of interest to all who study literature.
This book is a unique study of how the role of ‘the messenger’ has changed throughout history, starting from ancient times and ending with the person’s role today. The chapters include an analysis of the personal characteristics required by a messenger, the dangers they often have to face, especially in troubled times, and how they have the power to change the course of history because of their functions. The book analyses various types of messengers who were, and are still, significant, and ends by looking at how the role will continue to develop and change, taking technological advances into account. The book, in short, is unusual, captivating and will be of interest to an informed general readership and academics of various disciplines. Of particular interest will be the analysis the book provides of the messengers we send into space in search of life, and the potential messengers who will visit our planet in the future.
This book presents novel insights into the work and practice of the actor Krishnan Nair, who was unique in the field of Kathakali, the dance drama of South India. It shows how, because of his superb ability to connect with his audiences and the sheer charisma of his personality, Nair was able to achieve his burning ambitions. It highlights how Nair was able to ensure that Kathakali performers were invested with status and were paid a decent wage, allowing them to live in reasonable comfort.
This book is written for all lovers of the performing arts, especially those who love Kathakali, the dance drama of Kerala, the southern state in India. While other texts have been written about the history of the dance drama in English, this book uniquely brings in Shakespearean plays and characters, comparing them to the stories and characters in Kathakali to give it a completely new perspective.
The most original and authoritative voice of today's English lexicography presents a fully revised new edition of his beloved usage dictionary When Bryan Garner published the first edition of A Dictionary of Modern American Usage in 1999, the book quickly became one of the most influential style guides ever written for the English language. After four previous editions and over twenty years, our language has evolved in many ways, and the powerful tool of big data has revolutionized lexicography. This extensively revised new edition fully captures these changes, featuring a thousand new entries and over two hundred replacement entries, thoroughly updated usage data and ratios on word frequency based on the Google Ngram Viewer, a more balanced coverage of World Englishes, not just American and British, and the inclusion of gender-neutral language. However, one thing has not changed: in no sense is this a regular dictionary but a masterpiece of lexicography written with wit and personality by one of the preeminent authorities on the English language. To put it in David Foster Wallace's words, Garner's discussion of rhetoric and style still borders on genius. From the (lost) battle between self-deprecating and self-depreciating to the misuse of it's for its, from the variant spelling patty-cake taking over pat-a-cake in American English to the singular uses of they, Garner explains the nuances of grammar and vocabulary and the linguistic blunders to which modern writers and speakers are prone, whether in word choice, syntax, phrasing, punctuation, or pronunciation. His empirical approach liberates English from two extremes: from the purists who maintain that split infinitives and sentence-ending prepositions are malfeasances and from the linguistic relativists who believe that whatever people say or write must necessarily be accepted. The purpose of Garner's dictionary is to help writers, editors, and speakers use the language effectively. And it does so in a playful and persuasive way that will help you sound grammatical but relaxed, refined but natural, correct but unpedantic.
This accessible and unusually wide-ranging book is essential reading for anyone interested in postcolonial and African American women's writing. It provides a valuable gender and culture inflected critical introduction to well established women writers: Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Margaret Atwood, Suniti Namjoshi, Bessie Head, and others from the U.S.A., India, Africa, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and introduces emergent writers from South East Asia, Cyprus and Oceania. Engaging with and clarifying contested critical areas of feminism and the postcolonial; exploring historical background and cultural context, economic, political, and psychoanalytic influences on gendered experience, it provides a cohesive discussion of key issues such as cultural and gendered identity, motherhood, mothertongue, language, relationships, women's economic constraints and sexual politics.
Despite its international influence, Polish theatre remains a mystery to many Westerners. This volume attempts to fill in current gaps in English-language scholarship by offering a historical and critical analysis of two of the most influential works of Polish theatre: Jerzy Grotowski’s ‘Akropolis’ and Tadeusz Kantor’s ‘Dead Class’. By examining each director’s representation of Auschwitz, this study provides a new understanding of how translating national trauma through the prism of performance can alter and deflect the meaning and reception of theatrical works, both inside and outside of their cultural and historical contexts.
Newly adapted for the Anglophone reader, this is an excellent translation of Hans-Thies Lehmann’s groundbreaking study of the new theatre forms that have developed since the late 1960s, which has become a key reference point in international discussions of contemporary theatre. In looking at the developments since the late 1960s, Lehmann considers them in relation to dramatic theory and theatre history, as an inventive response to the emergence of new technologies, and as an historical shift from a text-based culture to a new media age of image and sound. Engaging with theoreticians of 'drama' from Aristotle and Brecht, to Barthes and Schechner, the book analyzes the work of recent experimental theatre practitioners such as Robert Wilson, Tadeusz Kantor, Heiner Müller, the Wooster Group, Needcompany and Societas Raffaello Sanzio. Illustrated by a wealth of practical examples, and with an introduction by Karen Jürs-Munby providing useful theoretical and artistic contexts for the book, Postdramatic Theatre is an historical survey expertly combined with a unique theoretical approach which guides the reader through this new theatre landscape.
From healing, fertility and religious rituals, through theatrical entertainment, to death ceremonies and ancestor worship, World Dance Cultures introduces an extraordinary variety of dance forms practiced around the world. This highly illustrated textbook draws on wide-ranging historical documentation and first-hand accounts, taking in India, Bali, Java, Cambodia, China, Japan, Hawai’i, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Africa, Turkey, Spain, Native America, South America, and the Caribbean. Each chapter covers a certain region’s distinctive dances, pinpoints key issues and trends from the form’s development to its modern iteration, and offers a wealth of study features including: Case Studies – zooming in on key details of a dance form’s cultural, historical, and religious contexts ‘Explorations’ – first-hand descriptions of dances, from scholars, anthropologists and practitioners ‘Think About’ – provocations to encourage critical analysis of dance forms and the ways in which they’re understood Discussion Questions – starting points for group work, classroom seminars or individual study Further Study Tips – listing essential books, essays and video material. Offering a comprehensive overview of each dance form covered with over 100 full color photos, World Dance Cultures is an essential introductory resource for students and instructors alike.
