Performing Mountains

Launching the landmark Performing Landscapes series, Performing Mountains brings together for the first time Mountain Studies and Performance Studies in order to examine an international selection of dramatic responses to mountain landscapes. Moving between different registers of writing, the book offers a critical assessment of how the cultural turn in landscape studies interacts with the practices of environmental theatre and performance. Conceived in three main parts, it begins by unpicking the layers of disciplinary complexity in both fields, before surveying the rich history and practice of rituals, playtexts and site specific works inspired by mountains. The last section moves to a unique analysis of mountains themselves using key concepts from performance: training, scenography, acting and spectatorship. Threaded throughout is a very personal tale of mountain research, offering a handrail or alternative guide through the book.

The Great Smoky Mountains, at the border of eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina, are among the highest peaks of the southern Appalachian chain. Although this area shares much with the cultural traditions of all southern Appalachia, the folklife here has been uniquely shaped by historical events, including the Cherokee Removal of the 1830s and the creation of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park a century later. This book surveying the rich folklife of this special place in the American South offers a view of the culture as it has been defined and changed by scholars, missionaries, the federal government, tourists, and people of the region themselves. Here is an overview of the history of a beautiful landscape, one that examines the character typified by its early settlers, by the displacement of the people, and by the manner in which the folklife was discovered and defined during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Here also is an examination of various folk traditions and a study of how they have changed and evolved.

Finalist, Lambda Literary Award In the beginning, there is no he. There is no she. Two cells make up one cell. This is the mathematics behind creation. One plus one makes one. Life begets life. We are the period to a sentence, the effect to a cause, always belonging to someone. We are never our own. This is why we are so lonely. She of the Mountains is a beautifully rendered illustrated novel by Vivek Shraya, the author of the Lambda Literary Award finalist God Loves Hair. Shraya weaves a passionate, contemporary love story between a man and his body, with a re-imagining of Hindu mythology. Both narratives explore the complexities of embodiment and the damaging effects that policing gender and sexuality can have on the human heart. Illustrations are by Raymond Biesinger, whose work has appeared in such publications as The New Yorker and the New York Times. Vivek Shraya is a multimedia artist, working in the mediums of music, performance, literature, and film. His most recent film, What I LOVE about Being QUEER, has been expanded to include an online project and book with contributions from around the world. He is also author of God Loves Hair.

Unique original material on the phenomenon of the spirit-mediums of Upper Tibet, the men and women who channel the gods. With extensive interviews with members of this living tradition.

Insiders' Guide to North Carolina's Mountains is the essential source for in-depth travel and relocation information to the region that includes Asheville, Biltmore Estate, Cherokee, Blue Ridge Parkway, and other nearby environs. Written by a local (and true insider), this guide offers a personal and practical perspective of the area and its surrounding environs.

Theodore Levin takes readers on a journey through the rich sonic world of inner Asia, where the elemental energies of wind, water, and echo; the ubiquitous presence of birds and animals; and the legendary feats of heroes have inspired a remarkable art and technology of sound-making among nomadic pastoralists. As performers from Tuva and other parts of inner Asia have responded to the growing worldwide popularity of their music, Levin follows them to the West, detailing their efforts to nourish global connections while preserving the power and poignancy of their music traditions.