New Books In Dance

Nick Aikens and Elizabeth Robles discuss The Place Is Here (Sternberg Press, 2019) and the range of perspectives on black art in Thatcherite Britain offered by the collection of artworks, essays, and conversations found in the book. The Place Is Here begins to write a missing chapter in British art history: work by black artists in the Thatcherite 1980s. Richly illustrated, with more than two hundred color images, it brings together artworks, essays, archives, and conversations that map the varying perspectives and approaches of a group of artists who challenged the dominance of white heterosexual men in the canon of contemporary art. The many artists discussed and displayed here do not make up a “movement” or a school or a chronological progression, but represent the diverse interests and activities of artists across a decade and beyond. They grapple with black nationalism, anti-colonialism and postcolonialism, anti-Thatcherism, black feminism, black queer subjectivity, psychoanalysis, forms of narrative and

Why Do Actors Train?: Embodiment for Theatre Makers and Thinkers (Bloomsbury, 2023) powerfully demystifies the actor-training process by focusing on acting as embodied cognition. In this framework, thought is action and action is thought. Krumholz uses the frame of embodied cognition to analyze which specific skills are actually being developed through several acting exercises. He bypasses typical acting-coach encouragements to "stop thinking" and "get out of your head," instead insisting that all acting is always already both physical and mental. This is a must-read book for anyone interested in the intersections of philosophy, theatre, and psychology, as well as anyone who has ever wondered what the point of seemingly-trivial acting exercises actually is. Andy Boyd is a playwright based in Brooklyn, New York. He is a graduate of the playwriting MFA at Columbia University, Harvard University, and the Arizona School for the Arts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show

Damon Kruskowski, author of Ways of Hearing and The New Analog, previously member of Galaxie 500 and currently a member of Damon & Naomi interviews Rose Simpson about her book Muse, Odalisque, Handmaiden. Rose is an English former musician. Between 1968 and 1971, she was a member of the Incredible String Band, with whom she sang and played bass guitar, violin, and percussion. Between 1967 and 1971 Rose Simpson lived with the Incredible String Band (Mike Heron, Robin Williamson and Licorice McKechnie), morphing from English student to West Coast hippie and, finally, bassist in leathers. The band's image adorned psychedelic posters and its music was the theme song for an alternative lifestyle. Rose and partner Mike Heron believed in, and lived, a naive vision of utopia in Scotland. But they were also a band on tour, enjoying the thrills of that life. They were at the center of “Swinging London” and at the Chelsea Hotel with Andy Warhol's superstars. They shared stages with rock idols and played at Woodstock in

Julius Caesar is one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays, telling the story of one of history’s most famous events. In this tense political thriller, the Roman senator Brutus must decide whether to assassinate the powerful military general Julius Caesar in order to save Roman Republic — and the audience must decide whether Brutus made the right choice. In this course, you’ll learn how Shakespeare dramatized the historical event of Caesar’s assassination in 44 BCE, and particularly how he linked refined political rhetoric, aspiration toward Roman ideals, and acts of savage violence. You’ll also hear the play’s key speeches performed and analyzed by world-class Shakespearean actors and literary scholars. In Part 1, you’ll be guided through a detailed account of the story with commentary by Michael Dobson, Director of the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon and Professor of Shakespeare Studies, University of Birmingham. Professor Dobson discusses the Roman history behind Julius Caesar and the cultural ro

In We'll Play till We Die: Journeys across a Decade of Revolutionary Music in the Muslim World (University of California Press, 2022), Mark LeVine, Professor at University of California, Irvine, dives into the revolutionary youth music cultures of Muslim societies before, during, and beyond the waves of resistance that shook the region from Morocco to Pakistan.  This sequel to his celebrated 2008 musical travelogue Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance, and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam, shows how some of the world's most extreme music not only helped inspire and define region-wide protests, but also exemplifies the beauty and diversity of youth cultures throughout Muslim societies. In our conversation we discussed early metal scenes in the Southwest Asia, the Arab uprisings, hip hop culture, the rise of electronic music, musicians and fans organizing and protesting, the circulation of music through global platforms, the role of subcultures, harassment, imprisonment and police brutality toward youth, the r

From The Lady Eve, to The Big Valley, Barbara Stanwyck played parts that showcased her multidimensional talents but also illustrated the limits imposed on women in film and television. Catherine Russell’s A to Z consideration of the iconic actress analyzes twenty-six facets of Stanwyck and the America of her times. Russell examines Stanwyck’s work onscreen against the backdrop of costuming and other aspects of filmmaking. But she also views the actress’s off-screen performance within the Hollywood networks that made her an industry favorite and longtime cornerstone of the entertainment community. Russell’s montage approach coalesces into an engrossing portrait of a singular artist whose intelligence and savvy placed her center-stage in the production of her films and in the debates around women, femininity, and motherhood that roiled mid-century America. Original and rich, The Cinema of Barbara Stanwyck: Twenty-Six Short Essays on a Working Star (U Illinois Press, 2023) is an essential and entertaining reexam

In Part 3, Professor Farah Karim-Cooper offers close-readings of some of the play’s most significant scenes. You’ll also hear a special commentary on Othello by actor Keith Hamilton Cobb, author and performer of the acclaimed one-man show American Moor (https://americanmoor.com/), which examines the experience and perspective of black men in America through the metaphor of William Shakespeare’s character, Othello. Speeches and Performers: Othello, 1.3, “Her father loved me …” (Keith Hamilton Cobb) Iago, 2.1, “That Cassio loves her …” (Anton Lesser) Emilia and Desdemona, 4.3, “I would not do such a wrong …” (Dame Harriet Walter and Katy Stephens) Keith Hamilton Cobb, reflection on Othello Visit the course webpage at www.shakespeareforall.com/othello for a bonus recording of Othello's 1.3 speech by RSC actor Paterson Joseph. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/performing-arts

Sebanti Chatterjee's book Choral Voices: Ethnographic Imaginations of Sound and Sacrality (Bloomsbury, 2023) is about sacred and secular choirs in Goa and Shillong across churches, seminaries, schools, auditoriums, classrooms, reality TV shows, and festivals. Voice and genre emerge as social objects annotated by tradition, nostalgia, and innovation. Piety literally and metaphorically shapes the Christian lifeworld, predominantly those belonging to the Presbyterian and Catholic denominations. Indigeneity structures the political and cultural motifs in the making of the Christian musical traditions. Located at the intersection of Sociology, Anthropology, and Ethnomusicology, the choral voices emplace 'affect' and the visual-aural dispatch. Thus, sonic spectrum holds space for indigenous and global musicality. This ethnographic work will be useful for scholars researching music and sound studies, religious studies, cultural anthropology, and sociology of India. Tiatemsu Longkumer is a Ph.D. scholar working on In

The Wrong Kind of Women: Inside Our Revolution to Dismantle the Gods of Hollywood (Beacon, 2020) by Naomi McDougall Jones is a brutally honest look at the systemic exclusion of women in film—an industry with massive cultural influence—and how, in response, women are making space in cinema for their voices to be heard. Generation after generation, women have faced the devastating reality that Hollywood is a system built to keep them out. The films created by that system influence everything from our worldviews to our brain chemistry. When women’s voices are excluded from the medium, the impact on society is immense. Actor, screenwriter, and award-winning independent filmmaker Naomi McDougall Jones takes us inside the cutthroat, scandal-laden film industry, where only 5% of top studio films are directed by women and less than 20% of leading characters in mainstream films are female. Jones calls on all of us to act radically to build a different kind of future for cinema—not only for the women being actively hur

In his new series, Gathering of the Tribe (Headpress, 2022) Mark Goodall explores the mysterious power of sound and tone. Each book in the series is devoted to reviewing records that reveal divide and cosmic laws, voyages to other worlds, or use sound as a tool for transformation. Volume One: Acid explores the key explores the key aspects of the acid experience, these being principally the way in which psychedelic drugs intensify sensory impressions (sound and vision); the ability to experience different dimensions simultaneously and mystical dimensions where the individual feels unified with the cosmos. This music also explores aspects of the infamous ‘bad trip’ or the ‘terror that was wrong’, where positive feelings are replaced by paranoia, depression, anxiety and disturbing flashbacks, the ‘other side of anguish.’ Volume Two: Landscape examines the ways that landscapes have long inspired the consciousness of creative artists. By way of quick introduction to the links between music and territories, the 197

C. Riley Snorton and Hentyle Yapp read from Saturation, a book that offers an analysis of racial representation and controversy in the art world. Controversies involving race and the art world are often discussed in terms of diversity and representation—as if having the right representative from a group or a larger plurality of embodied difference would absolve art institutions from historic forms of exclusion. This book offers another approach, taking into account not only questions of racial representation but also issues of structural change and the redistribution of resources. In essays, conversations, discussions, and artist portfolios, contributors confront in new ways questions at the intersection of art, race, and representation. The book uses saturation as an organizing concept, in part to suggest that current paradigms cannot encompass the complex realities of race. Saturation provides avenues to situate race as it relates to perception, science, aesthetics, the corporeal, and the sonic. In color th

Actresses and Mental Illness: Histrionic Heroines (Routledge, 2018) investigates the relationship between the work of the actress and her personal experience of mental illness, from the late nineteenth through to the end of twentieth century. Over the past two decades scholars have made great advances in our understanding of the history of the actress, unearthing the material conditions of her working life, the force of her creative agency and the politics of her reception and representation. By focusing specifically on actresses’ encounters with mental illness, Fiona Gregory builds on this earlier work and significantly supplements it. Through detailed case studies of both well-known and neglected figures in theatre and film history, including Mrs Patrick Campbell, Vivien Leigh, Frances Farmer and Diana Barrymore, it shows how mental illness – actual or supposed – has impacted on actresses’ performances, careers and celebrity. The book covers a range of topics including: representing emotion on stage; the ‘f

Part 2 delves into the characters’ psychologies and how character is created by speech — how Othello’s language reflects his changing sense of self and how Iago carries out his plot with particular rhetorical strategies. With Professor Farah Karim-Cooper, you’ll also address questions of race in Othello, including the question of whether the play’s depiction of a racist society makes it a racist play. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/performing-arts

Brian Valente-Quinn is an Associate Professor of Francophone African studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. His book, Senegalese Stagecraft: Decolonizing Theater-Making in Francophone Africa, was published at Northwestern University Press in 2021. Senegalese Stagecraft explores the theatrical stage in Senegal as a site of poetic expression, political activism, and community engagement. In their responses to the country’s colonial heritage, as well as through their innovations on the craft of theater‑making, Senegalese performers have created an array of decolonizing stage spaces that have shaped the country’s theater history. Their work has also addressed a global audience, experimenting with international performance practices while proposing new visions of the role of culture and stagecraft in society. Through a study of the innovative work of Senegalese theater-makers from the 1930s onward, Senegalese Stagecraft explores a wide range of historical contexts and themes, including French colonial educ

On Music Theory and Making Music More Welcoming for Everyone (University of Michigan Press, 2023) by Philip Ewell is an unflinching look at white supremacy and the academy, specifically in the discipline of music theory, although Ewell’s insights and arguments can apply just as well to all music studies and most, if not all, other academic fields. Using meticulous research and his own experiences, Ewell documents the results of music theory’s white racial frame. He shows how the power traditionally wielded by white, cisgender men in academia is supported by the methodologies, the pedagogy, and the very music that most music specialists study, perform, and teach, and how this white racial frame makes it difficult for anyone else to feel comfortable, much less succeed in the field. Ultimately, the book brings attention to the myriad ways that people are excluded, denigrated, and marginalized by deeply entrenched beliefs, analytical methods, and systems in music theory. Ewell reminds readers that there is a diff

The study of classic and contemporary films can provide a powerful avenue to understand the experience of mental illness. In Madness at the Movies: Understanding Mental Illness through Film (Johns Hopkins UP, 2023), James Charney, MD, a practicing psychiatrist and long-time cinephile, examines films that delve deeply into characters' inner worlds, and he analyzes moments that help define their particular mental illness. Based on the highly popular course that Charney taught at Yale University and the American University of Rome, Madness at the Movies introduces readers to films that may be new to them and encourages them to view these films in an entirely new way. Through films such as Psycho, Taxi Driver, Through a Glass Darkly, Night of the Hunter, A Woman Under the Influence, Ordinary People, and As Good As It Gets, Charney covers an array of disorders, including psychosis, paranoia, psychopathy, depression, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and anxiety. He examines how these films work to c

William Shakespeare’s Othello is the only one of his tragedies to feature a black male protagonist. Othello is a black general who elopes with a white noblewoman called Desdemona — a marriage that Iago, Othello’s comrade-in-arms, plots to destroy. In this course, you’ll learn Othello’s story, explore the complicated impact of race on Othello’s society and Othello himself, and hear the play’s key speeches performed and analyzed by world-class Shakespearean actors and literary scholars. In Part 1, you’ll be guided through a detailed account of the story with commentary by Farah Karim-Cooper, Head of Higher Education and Research at Shakespeare's Globe and Professor of Shakespeare Studies at King's College, London. Professor Karim-Cooper provides key historical background for understanding the play’s representation of Othello. This summary is told using the language of the play itself, placing key quotations in context to help you understand where these lines come from and what they mean.  Learn more about your

As one of the world's best-selling musicians, Lady Gaga has set the musical bar high. Since her debut album, The Fame (2008), she has sold more than 124 million records and scooped numerous awards, including twelve Grammy Awards and eighteen MTV Music Video Awards. Yet she is much more than a musician. At the helm of the Haus of Gaga--a close-knit circle of behind-the-scenes creatives--Lady Gaga is a performance artist like no other; her forward-thinking fashions and innovations mark her out as the ultimate maverick. Recently, she has reinvented herself as an accomplished jazz performer, dueting with legendary singer Tony Bennett on Cheek to Cheek (2014) and Love For Sale (2021), while also proving herself a consummate actor with lead roles in A Star Is Born (2018) and House of Gucci (2021). And with her advocacy for LGBT rights and active championing of kindness via the Born This Way Foundation, co-founded with her mother Cynthia Germanotta in 2011, it's clear to see why her fans adore her. Lady Gaga: Applau

First performed in the Milagro Theater of Portland, Oregon in 2014, Olga Sanchez Saltveit’s ¡O Romeo! imagines William Shakespeare, late in his life, writing a play set in Mexico about a conquistador and his beloved, a woman from Tenochtitlán. Shakespeare tells Rifke, his Spanish housekeeper that his conquistador protagonist will “integrate” his beloved’s “life and faith with” his own. Rifke who has received letters from her missionary brother living in the Americas responds, “Los conquistadores no integran, imponen. ¿No has oído lo que escribe mi hermano?” (“The conquistadors do not integrate, they impose. Have you not heard what my brother writes?”) Saltveit’s play has been published in the first volume of a new anthology titled The Bard in the Borderlands: An Anthology of Shakespeare Appropriations en La Frontera (ACMRS, 2023), with its editors, Katherine “Kate” Gillen, Adrianna M. Santos, and Kathryn “Katie” Vomero Santos. Katherine Gillen is Professor of English at Texas A&M-San Antonio and is the author

In Uncommon Sense: Aesthetics after Marcuse (MIT Press, 2022), Craig Leonard argues for the contemporary relevance of the aesthetic theory of Herbert Marcuse, an original member of the Frankfurt School and icon of the New Left, while also acknowledging his philosophical limits. This account reinvigorates Marcuse for contemporary readers, putting his aesthetic theory into dialogue with anti-capitalist activism. Craig Leonard speaks to Pierre d’Alancaisez about anti-art, habit, the practice of defamiliarisation, a subversion of common sense. Leonard brings forward Marcuse’s claim that the aesthetic dimension is political because of its refusal to operate according to the repressive common sense that establishes and maintains relationships dictated by advanced capitalism. Craig Leonard‘s research and teaching interests include artist publications, sound art, performance and sculpture. His recent exhibitions include Central Art Garage (Ottawa), Darling Green (New York) and Double Happiness (Toronto). He is associ