The Passion Of Music And Dance

The late nineteenth century witnessed the birth and popularization of a number of highly emotional musical styles that played on the eagerness of modern Europeans and Americans to toy with the limits of sanity and to taste the ecstasies of living on the edge. This absorbing book explores these popular, passionate musical styles -- which include flamenco, tango and rebetika -- and points out that they arose as well-intentioned intellectuals co-opted the emotional experiences most closely associated with women. In drawing those experiences out of female practice, they defined, objectified, and turned them into strategies of domination, the deepest impact of which was felt, ironically, by modern women.In bridging anthropology, sociology, cultural, media, body and gender studies, this book broadens the base of theory which has ignored the transnational world of Latin and Mediterranean popular culture and makes a powerful statement about the intersection of nationalism, sexuality, identity and authenticity.

These scripts describe the origination of dance and the timely unfolding of what we now refer to as the dance world which is comprised of ancient methods throughout time to our present manners of dance expression by and through the endless talents of professional dancers and common to better public dance participants. Limited dance instruction is offered in detail for those who are anxious to learn or brush up on previous dance abilities. Your author expresses personal dance experiences, views on the dance industry, what it has been doing and insight for its future; all presented in realistic and cordial depth. Also, your author/dance teacher has had over forty years of various dance experience which qualifies in writing on the subject.

Scientific Essay from the year 2009 in the subject English - Literature, Works, grade: A, University of Minho (Arts and Humanities), course: English Language and Literature Studies - Comparative Literature, language: English, abstract: Abstract: The essay proposes to analyze Brian Friel's work, Dancing at Lughnasa, in a peculiar perspective - that of dance, language and music forms, in which the 'warrioresses' Mundy are involved. Exploring these forms intrinsically attached to public and private lives which are issues to that society, we will try to go beyond the text and understand what Friel intended to say to the Irish society. Beyond the language movement and its contrasts, we will analyze in what performance can, at certain point, mystify life. We will be (re) organizing the rituals and myths absorbed in the Mundy family and Irish society in order to contextualize them in present Ireland and world. Equally important, relate the motifs in Ballybeg inside-out world (the carnivalization invoked in Friel's work). Finally, the essay tangles the different efforts of Brian Friel's in Dancing at Lughnasa when using representative forms of speech (music, dance, silence) and what considers being a more viable and broader definition of Ireland itself. Key Words: Dance, Music, Friel's play - Dancing at Lughnasa, and Family.

Not so long ago, songs by the Andrews Sisters and Lawrence Welk blasted from phonographs, lilted over the radio, and dazzled television viewers across the country. Lending star quality to the ethnic music of Poles, Italians, Slovaks, Jews, and Scandinavians, luminaries like Frankie Yankovic, the Polka King, and "Whoopee John" Wilfart became household names to millions of Americans. In this vivid and engaging book, Victor Greene uncovers a wonderful corner of American social history as he traces the popularization of old-time ethnic music from the turn of the century to the 1960s. Drawing on newspaper clippings, private collections, ethnic societies, photographs, recordings, and interviews with musicians and promoters, Greene chronicles the emergence of a new mass culture that drew heavily on the vivid color, music, and dance of ethnic communities. In this story of American ethnic music, with its countless entertainers performing never-forgotten tunes in hundreds of small cities around the country, Greene revises our notion of how many Americans experienced cultural life. In the polka belt, extending from Connecticut to Nebraska and from Texas up to Minnesota and the Dakotas, not only were polkas, laendlers, schottisches, and waltzes a musical passion, but they shone a scintillating new light on the American cultural landscape. Greene follows the fortunes of groups like the Gold Chain Bohemians, illuminating the development of an important segment of American popular music that fed the craze for international dance music. And even though old-time music declined in the 1960s, overtaken by rock and roll, a new Grammy for the polka was initiated in 1986. In its ebullience and vitality, the genre endures.

This is the story of the National Ballet of Canada – the people, the determination, and how at sixty it is still creating new work while still representing the classics. Passion to Dance is the story of the National Ballet of Canada – the people who dreamt the company into existence, the determination needed to keep it afloat, the bumps on the road to its success, and above all, its passion for dance as a living, evolving art form. From catch-as-catch-can beginnings – borrowed quarters, tiny stages, enormous dreams the National Ballet has emerged as one of North America’s foremost dance troupes. The company at sixty is a company of its time, engaged in creating challenging new work, yet committed to maintaining the classics of the past, favourites like Swan Lake, The Nutcracker,and The Sleeping Beauty. One hundred and fifty photographs from the company’s archives illustrate this definitive history, filled with eyewitness accounts, backstage glimpses, and fascinating detail. This is a record of one of Canada’s boldest cultural experiments, a book to enjoy now and keep forever.

This is a biography of Dr Felicia Wu. Felicia was a scientist with a successful career in cancer research, but what marked the most extraordinary aspect about her life was her journey as a truly brave cancer patient and an incredibly determined cancer fighter. Originally, this book was intended to be an autobiography written and narrated by Felicia herself. She wanted to share with other cancer sufferers her 13 long years of experience fighting cancer to prepare them for the side effects and uncertainties of the treatment, and also to encourage them to brace and face their own treatment without fear. What she did not realize then was that her time was ticking away, and her life trickling off quickly. Writing her own autobiography proved to be an impossible task. Felicia succumbed to the prolonged battle and departed from this world. Her husband, Dr Cheng-Wen Wu, finished the uncompleted task of writing the book in loving memory of her. The biography of Felicia, originally published in Chinese edition, has been recommended as a reading model for students in schools and was nominated for an award in Taiwan. Felicia''s story had also inspired the production of a documentary film entitled, OC A Passion for Life, OCO funded and sponsored by The American Cancer Society. This biography of Felicia in English edition, painstakingly translated by Dr Cheng-Wen Wu and his collaborating translator, Ms Annie Chen, will certainly live up to its original premise as an inspiration to touch more lives and as a source of strength to all who encounter difficulty, disappointment and hurt at any point of their lives. Sample Chapter(s). Chapter 1: Introduction (35 KB). Contents: Days of Youth: Precocious From the Start; Meeting and Getting to Know Each Other; Lifelong Mutual Commitment; Studying Abroad; Life Abroad: Memories of Studying Abroad; Our Research and Life Together; A Sabbatical Year in France; The Long Island Days; Transition Period: Discovering Breast Cancer; Imparting Our Knowledge as Our Contribution to Taiwan; Life after Returning to Taiwan; Cancer Recurs; Fighting Cancer: Beginning a Long-Term Resistance; Offering Oneself as a Lab Specimen; High Dose Chemotherapy; Autologous Bone Marrow Transplantation; Reborn in Fire, Arisen from the Ashes; Fighting to the End: Cancer Strikes Once Again; Trying Medicine after Medicine; The Last Stage; Death Summons. Readership: General public."