Download or read book Global Theatre Anthologies Ancient Indigenous and Modern Plays from Africa and the Diaspora written by H.W. Fairman and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-11-02 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The power of theatrical performance is universal, but the style and concerns of theatre are specific to individual cultures. This volume in the Global Theatre Perspectives series presents a reconstructed ancient performance text, four one-act indigenous African plays and five modern dramas from various regions of Africa and the Caribbean Diaspora. Because these plays span centuries and are the work of artists from diverse cultures, readers can see elements that occur across time and space. Physicalized ritual, direct interaction with spectators, improvisation, music, drumming, and metaphorical animal characters help create the theatrical forms in multiple plays. Recurring themes include the establishment or challenging of political authority, the oppression or corruption of government, societal expectations based on gender, the complex and transformational nature of identity, and the power of dreams. Though each play is its own unique entity, reading them together allows readers to explore what theatrical elements and cultural concerns are perhaps essentially African. The Caribbean plays add further perspective to the questions of what values, theatrical and societal, are part of African drama, how these have influenced the Caribbean aesthetic, and what the relationships are between the old and new world. Among the creators of the pieces are two Nobel Laureates, those who have been exiled or jailed for the political nature of their work, and the author of his country's first constitution. The volume can serve as the primary text for an intensive semester-long investigation of African drama and culture. But it is also possible to use this volume along with others in the series as texts for a single course on drama from around the world. The global perspectives approach, letting works from ancient, indigenous, and modern times resonate with each other, encourages thinking across boundaries and connective human understanding.

Download or read book Global Theatre Anthologies Ancient Indigenous and Modern Plays from Africa and the Diaspora written by H.W. Fairman and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-11-02 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The power of theatrical performance is universal, but the style and concerns of theatre are specific to individual cultures. This volume in the Global Theatre Perspectives series presents a reconstructed ancient performance text, four one-act indigenous African plays and five modern dramas from various regions of Africa and the Caribbean Diaspora. Because these plays span centuries and are the work of artists from diverse cultures, readers can see elements that occur across time and space. Physicalized ritual, direct interaction with spectators, improvisation, music, drumming, and metaphorical animal characters help create the theatrical forms in multiple plays. Recurring themes include the establishment or challenging of political authority, the oppression or corruption of government, societal expectations based on gender, the complex and transformational nature of identity, and the power of dreams. Though each play is its own unique entity, reading them together allows readers to explore what theatrical elements and cultural concerns are perhaps essentially African. The Caribbean plays add further perspective to the questions of what values, theatrical and societal, are part of African drama, how these have influenced the Caribbean aesthetic, and what the relationships are between the old and new world. Among the creators of the pieces are two Nobel Laureates, those who have been exiled or jailed for the political nature of their work, and the author of his country's first constitution. The volume can serve as the primary text for an intensive semester-long investigation of African drama and culture. But it is also possible to use this volume along with others in the series as texts for a single course on drama from around the world. The global perspectives approach, letting works from ancient, indigenous, and modern times resonate with each other, encourages thinking across boundaries and connective human understanding.

Download or read book A History of Theatre in Africa written by Martin Banham and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004-05-13 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book aims to offer a broad history of theatre in Africa. The roots of African theatre are ancient and complex and lie in areas of community festival, seasonal rhythm and religious ritual, as well as in the work of popular entertainers and storytellers. Since the 1950s, in a movement that has paralleled the political emancipation of so much of the continent, there has also grown a theatre that comments back from the colonized world to the world of the colonists and explores its own cultural, political and linguistic identity. A History of Theatre in Africa offers a comprehensive, yet accessible, account of this long and varied chronicle, written by a team of scholars in the field. Chapters include an examination of the concepts of 'history' and 'theatre'; North Africa; Francophone theatre; Anglophone West Africa; East Africa; Southern Africa; Lusophone African theatre; Mauritius and Reunion; and the African diaspora.

Download or read book Performative Inter actions in African Theatre written by Osita Okagbue and published by . This book was released on 2014-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Performative Inter-Actions in African Theatre is a book-set with unique subtitles designed to focus and differentiate between the three volumes in the set. The first volume, Diaspora Representations and the Interweaving of Cultures, explores the idea that in and from their various locations around the world, the plays of the African diaspora acknowledge and pay homage to the cultures of home, while simultaneously and vigorously articulating a sense of their Africanness in their various inter-actions with their host cultures. In the second volume, Innovation, Creativity and Social Change, contributions address performativity as a process â " particularly in the context of theatreâ (TM)s engagement with contemporary realities with the hope of instigating social change. The examples explored point to the ingenuity and adaptive capacity of African theatre for engaging indigenous forms in the service of contemporary realities. The final volume is subtitled Making Space, Rethinking Drama and Theatre in Africa, and re-conceptualises notions of drama and theatre in Africa, and therefore redefines our understanding of the practice, role, and place they occupy in a constantly evolving African socio-cultural context. The contributorsâ (TM) backgrounds and global spread reflect the international focus of the book-set. The contributions, in their various ways, demonstrate the many advances and ingenious solutions adopted by African theatre practitioners in tackling some of the challenges arising from the adverse colonial experience, as well as the â oeone-sidedâ advance of globalisation. The essays attest to the thriving nature of African theatre and performance, which in the face of these challenges, has managed to retain its distinctiveness, while at the same time acknowledging, contesting, and appropriating influences from elsewhere into an aesthetic that is identifiably African. Consequently, the book-set is a comprehensive exploration of the current state of African theatre and performance, both on the continent and in the diaspora.

Download or read book Performative Inter actions in African Theatre written by Kenechukwu Igweonu and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is part of a three-volume book-set published under the general title of Performative Inter-Actions in African Theatre. Each of the three books in the set has a unique subtitle that works to better focus its content, and differentiates it from the other two volumes. The contributorsâ (TM) backgrounds and global spread adequately reflect the international focus of the three books that make up the collection. The contributions, in their various ways, demonstrate the many advances and ingenious solutions adopted by African theatre practitioners in tackling some of the challenges arising from the adverse colonial experience, as well as the â oeone-sidedâ advance of globalisation. The contributions attest to the thriving nature of African theatre and performance, which in the face of these challenges, has managed to retain its distinctiveness, while at the same time acknowledging, contesting, and appropriating influences from elsewhere into an aesthetic that is identifiably African. Consequently, the three books are presented as a comprehensive exploration of the current state of African theatre and performance, both on the continent and diaspora. Performative Inter-Actions in African Theatre 1: Diaspora Representations and the Interweaving of Cultures explores the idea that, in and from their various locations around the world, the plays of the African diaspora acknowledge and pay homage to the cultures of home, while simultaneously articulating a sense of their Africanness in their various inter-actions with their host cultures. Contributions in Diaspora Representations and the Interweaving of Cultures equally attest to the notion that the diaspora â " as we see it â " is not solely located outside of the African continent itself, but can be found in those performances in the continent that engage performatively with the West and other parts of the world in that process of articulating identity.

Download or read book The Methuen Drama Book of Plays from the Sixties written by Arnold Wesker and published by Methuen Drama. This book was released on 2008 with total page 548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection contains major works by some of the most important playwrights to emerge during the late fifties and early sixties, many of them collectively labelled "Angry Young Men", most of them associated with the Royal Court Theatre.

Download or read book Crosswinds written by William B. Branch and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Edited by award-winning U.S. playwright William Branch, this is a landmark collection of plays addressing various aspects of the global black experience by outstanding black playwrights from Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and North and South America. Among the plays are dramas by Nobel laureates Derek Walcott and Wole Soyinka, pioneering folklorist Efua Sutherland, and two-time Pulitzer prize winner August Wilson."--Amazon.com viewed Nov. 3, 2022.

Download or read book Contemporary African Plays written by Jane Plastow and published by Methuen Drama. This book was released on 1999 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The plays included in this volume are: Death and the King's Horseman by Wole Soyinka; Anowa by Ama Ata Aidoo; The Chattering and the Song by Femo Osofisan; The Rise and SHine of Comrade Fiasco by Andrew Whalley; Woza Albert! by Percy Mtwa, et al; and The Other War by Alemseged Tesfai.

Download or read book Modern Armenian Drama written by Nishan Parlakian and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2001-02-01 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Available in English for the first time, Modern Armenian Drama presents seven classic works from the Armenian stage. Spanning over a century (1871–1992), the plays explore such diverse themes science and religion, socioeconomic injustice, women's emancipation, and political reform through the medium of all the major European dramatic genres. Nishan Parlakian and S. Peter Cowe provide a comprehensive introduction to the history of Armenian drama, giving a valuable overview of its importance and development in Armenia, as well as a brief biography for each playwright. A preface to each play helps in placing the work within the context of historical and cultural issues of the time. Like the plays of Ibsen and O'Neill, the plays presented in this anthology are considered modern classics. They have an enduring quality and appeal to audiences who see them today. The editors have collected translations of the best examples of Armenian theater from its renaissance in the mid-nineteenth century to the present.

Download or read book The Methuen Drama Book of Plays by Black British Writers written by Mustapha Matura and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-10-16 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Methuen Drama Book of Plays by Black British Writers provides an essential anthology of six of the key plays that have shaped the trajectory of British black theatre from the late-1970s to the present day. In doing so it charts the journey from specialist black theatre companies to the mainstream, including West End success, while providing a cultural and racial barometer for Britain during the last forty years. It opens with Mustapha Matura's 1979 play Welcome Home Jacko which in its depiction of a group of young unemployed West Indians was one of the first to explore issues of youth culture, identity and racial and cultural identification. Jackie Kay's Chiaroscuro examines debates about the politics of black, mixed race and lesbian identities in 1980s Britain, and from the 1990s Winsome Pinnock's Talking in Tongues engages with the politics of feminism to explore issues of black women's identity in Britian and Jamaica. From the first decade of the twenty-first century the three plays include Roy Williams' seminal pub-drama Sing Yer Hearts Out for the Lads, exploring racism and identity against the backdrop of the World Cup; Kwame Kwei-Armah's National Theatre play of 2004, Fix Up, about black cultural history and progress in modern Britain, and finally Bola Agbage's terrific 2007 debut, Gone Too Far!, which examines questions of identity and tensions between Africans and Caribbeans living in Britain. Edited by Lynnette Goddard, this important anthology provides an essential introduction to the last forty years of British black theatre.

Download or read book Economics Made Simple for the Young and Old written by Michael Walcott and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2010-01-18 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Economics Made Simple" is a book written for people who know little about economics but are intimidated by the subject. It is written in a simple conversational style that will make a fifth grader relax and enjoy reading about a subject that gives most people difficulty. Its subject matter includes topics like, 1) "Why did the economic crisis of 2008 happen?" 2) "Why are some people paid millions of dollars while most people struggle just to make ends meet?" 3) "How is money created?" 4) "Where did it all begin?" 5)"Does health care need fixing?" 6)"Why do we need a government to do things for us?" 7)"Why should anyone bother to learn economics?" After reading this book, readers will have a better understanding of why things are the way they are, and what can be done to change things that are seen as wrong. The book is intended to empower Americans to make changes in an economic system that impacts everyone's life.

Download or read book A Cathedral Inside written by Michael Walcott and published by Michael Walcott. This book was released on 2005-06-22 with total page 115 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A Cathedral Inside, Odyssey of a Guyanese Family" tells the story of how Jack and Edna Walcott started a family in the nineteen twenties in British Guiana, and how the family managed to survive and thrive after the Mother died in 1948, leaving fifteen children to be raised by their father. The story tells how the children managed to overcome obstacles and become a family of over a hundred and fifty people, still holding on to the values taught by Edna Walcott, who died before most of them were born.

Download or read book The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Drama written by Xiaomei Chen and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2014-03-25 with total page 655 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This condensed anthology reproduces close to a dozen plays from Xiaomei Chen's well-received original collection, The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Drama, along with her critical introduction to the historical, cultural, and aesthetic evolution of twentieth-century Chinese spoken drama. Comprising representative works from the Republican era to postsocialist China, the book encapsulates the revolutionary rethinking of Chinese theater and performance that began in the late Qing dynasty and vividly portrays the uncertainty and anxiety brought on by modernism, socialism, political conflict, and war. Chosen works from 1919 to 1990 also highlight the formation of national and gender identities during a period of tremendous social, cultural, and political change in China and the genesis of contemporary attitudes toward the West. PRC theater tracks the rise of communism, juxtaposing ideals of Chinese socialism against the sacrifices made for a new society. Post-Mao drama addresses the nation's socialist legacy, its attempt to reexamine its cultural roots, and postsocialist reflections on critical issues such as nation, class, gender, and collective memories. An essential, portable guide for easy reference and classroom use, this abridgment provides a concise yet well-rounded survey of China's theatricality and representation of political life. The original work not only established a canon of modern Chinese drama in the West but also made it available for the first time in English in a single volume.

Download or read book Modern Drama Plays of the 80s and 90s written by and published by Methuen Drama. This book was released on 2001 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An anthology bringing together some of the most importnat and controvesial plays from the last twenty years.

Download or read book Remaking Pacific Pasts written by Diana Looser and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2014-10-31 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the late 1960s, drama by Pacific Island playwrights has flourished throughout Oceania. Although many Pacific Island cultures have a broad range of highly developed indigenous performance forms—including oral narrative, clowning, ritual, dance, and song—scripted drama is a relatively recent phenomenon. Emerging during a period of region-wide decolonization and indigenous self-determination movements, most of these plays reassert Pacific cultural perspectives and performance techniques in ways that employ, adapt, and challenge the conventions and representations of Western theater. Drawing together discussions in theater and performance studies, historiography, Pacific studies, and postcolonial studies, Remaking Pacific Pasts offers the first full-length comparative study of this dynamic and expanding body of work. It introduces readers to the field with an overview of significant works produced throughout the region over the past fifty years, including plays in English and in French, as well as in local vernaculars and lingua francas. The discussion traces the circumstances that have given rise to a particular modern dramatic tradition in each site and also charts routes of theatrical circulation and shared artistic influences that have woven connections beyond national borders. This broad survey contextualizes the more detailed case studies that follow, which focus on how Pacific dramatists, actors, and directors have used theatrical performance to critically engage the Pacific’s colonial and postcolonial histories. Chapters provide close readings of selected plays from Hawai‘i, Aotearoa/New Zealand, New Caledonia/Kanaky, and Fiji that treat events, figures, and legacies of the region’s turbulent past: Captain Cook’s encounters, the New Zealand Wars, missionary contact, the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, and the Fiji coups. The book explores how, in their remembering and retelling of these pasts, theater artists have interrogated and revised repressive and marginalizing models of historical understanding developed through Western colonialism or exclusionary indigenous nationalisms, and have opened up new spaces for alternative historical narratives and ways of knowing. In so doing, these works address key issues of identity, genealogy, representation, political parity, and social unity, encouraging their audiences to consider new possibilities for present and future action. This study emphasizes the contribution of artistic production to social and political life in the contemporary Pacific, demonstrating how local play production has worked to facilitate processes of creative nation building and the construction of modern regional imaginaries. Remaking Pacific Pasts makes valuable contributions to Pacific literature, world theater history, Pacific studies, and postcolonial studies. The book opens up to comparative critical discussion a geopolitical region that has received little attention from theater and performance scholars, extending our understanding of the form and function of theater in different cultural contexts. It enriches existing discussions in postcolonial studies about the decolonizing potential of literary and artistic endeavors, and it suggests how theater might function as a mode of historical enquiry and debate, adding to discussions about ways in which Pacific histories might be developed, challenged, or recalibrated. Consequently, the book stimulates new discussions in Pacific studies where theater has, to date, suffered from a lack of critical exposure. Carefully researched and original in its approach, Remaking Pacific Pasts will appeal to scholars, graduate students, and upper-level undergraduate students in theater and performance studies and Pacific Islands studies; it will also be of interest to cultural historians and to specialists in cultural studies and postcolonial studies.

Download or read book West African Masking Traditions and Diaspora Masquerade Carnivals written by Raphael Chijioke Njoku and published by Rochester Studies in African H. This book was released on 2020-06-23 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A revisionist account of African masquerade carnivals in transnational context that offers readers a unique perspective on the connecting threads between African cultural trends and African American cultural artifacts

Download or read book New South African Plays written by Beverley Naidoo and published by Aurora Metro Publications Ltd.. This book was released on 2019-04-02 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of six plays dealing with the new South Africa, published in 2006 to celebrate 10 years of democracy post-apartheid. Plays about racial conflict, the impact of AIDS, power and corruption, the legacy of the past and female identity. Reprinted 2012, 2019. The Plays The Playground by Beverly Naidoo “...it floats on a haunting, echoing raft of traditional South African harmonies that make watching it a joyful experience as well as a thought-provoking one...” Time Out Critics’ Choice – Pick of the Year Taxi by Sibusiso Mamba: Edinburgh fringe first winner “a superbly written and produced play... A fine piece of work that’s refreshingly free of cliches.” Daily Mail, Pick of the Week Green Man Flashing by Mike Van Graan “...This finely crafted drama tears at the heart and soul of our democracy, and rips at the underbelly of corruption and political power through its astute writing...” Star Tonight Rejoice by James Whylie “... the cruellest irony of all is left until the end... the same one which has spelled the death of Rejoice... And millions more.” Friends of BBC Radio 3 What the Water Gave Me by Rehane Abrahams “tales that retrieve ancient magics and reveal contemporary terrors...” Cape Times To House by Ashwin Singh: Finalist in the 2003 PANSA (Performing Arts Network of SA) Festival of Reading of New Writing (the country’s foremost playwriting contest) “To House is an important piece of theatre; in it people voice opinions that are uncomfortable and edgy. The cathartic and therapeutic value of hearing these things said aloud in a public place is part of our essential healing process and proves, once again, that art has the ability to go where angels fear to tread.” Daily News, Durban