- Table View
- List View
Chinese National Cinema (National Cinemas #20)
by Yingjin ZhangThis introduction to Chinese national cinema covers three 'Chinas': mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Historical and comparative perspectives bring out the parallel developments in these three Chinas, while critical analysis explores thematic and stylistic changes over time. As well as exploring artistic achievements and ideological debates, Yingjin Zhang examines how - despite the pressures placed on the industry from state control and rigid censorship - Chinese national cinema remains incapable of projecting a single unified picture, but rather portrays many different Chinas.
Chinese Television in the Twenty-First Century: Entertaining the Nation (Routledge Contemporary China Series)
by Ruoyun Bai Geng SongThe past two decades witnessed the rise of television entertainment in China. Although television networks are still state-owned and Party-controlled in China, the ideological landscape of television programs has become increasingly diverse and even paradoxical, simultaneously subservient and defiant, nationalistic and cosmopolitan, moralistic and fun-loving, extravagant and mundane. Studying Chinese television as a key node in the network of power relationships, therefore, provides us with a unique opportunity to understand the tension-fraught and , paradox-permeated conditions of Chinese post-socialism. This book argues for a serious engagement with television entertainment. rethinking, It addresses the following questions. How is entertainment television politically and culturally significant in the Chinese context? How have political, industrial, and technological changes in the 2000s affected the way Chinese television relates to the state and society? How can we think of media regulation and censorship without perpetuating the myth of a self-serving authoritarian regime vs. a subdued cultural workforce? What do popular televisual texts tell us about the unsettled and reconfigured relations between commercial television and the state? The book presents a number of studies of popular television programs that are sensitive to the changing production and regulatory contexts for Chinese television in the twenty-first century. As an interdisciplinary study of the television industry, this book covers a number of important issues in China today, such as censorship, nationalism, consumerism, social justice, and the central and local authorities. As such, it will appeal to a broad audience including students and scholars of Chinese culture and society, media studies, television studies, and cultural studies.
Chinese Theatre: Volume One: From Exorcism to Entertainment
by Xioahuan ZhaoChinese Theatre: An Illustrated History Through Nuoxi and Mulianxi is the first book in any language entirely devoted to a historical inquiry into Chinese theatre through Nuoxi and Mulianxi, the two most representative and predominant forms of Chinese temple theatre. With a view to evaluating the role of temple theatre in the development of xiqu or traditional Chinese theatre and drama from myth to ritual to ritual drama to drama, Volume One provides a panoramic perspective that allows every aspect of Nuoxi to be considered, not in the margins of xiqu but in and of itself. Thus, this volume traces xiqu history from its shamanic roots in exorcism rituals of Nuo to various forms of ritual and theatrical performance presented at temple fairs, during community and calendrical festivals or for ceremonial functions over the course of imperial history, and into the twenty-first century, followed by an exploration of the scriptural origins and oral traditions of Mulianxi, with pivotal forms and functions of Nuoxi and Mulian storytelling, examined, explicated and illustrated in association with the development of corresponding genres of Chines performance literature and performing arts. This is an interdisciplinary book project that is aimed to help researchers and students of theatre history understand the ritual origins of Chinese theatre and the dynamic relationships among myth, ritual, religion, and theatre.
Chinese Theatre: Volume Two: From Storytelling to Story-acting
by Xiaohuan ZhaoChinese Theatre: An Illustrated History Through Nuoxi and Mulianxi is the first book in any language entirely devoted to a historical inquiry into Chinese theatre through Nuoxi and Mulianxi, the two most representative and predominant forms of Chinese temple theatre. Volume Two is a continuation of the historical inquiry into Chinese theatre with focus shifted from Mulian storytelling to Mulian story-acting. Thus, this volume traces the historical trajectory of xiqu from Northern dramas to Southern dramas and from elite court theatre to mass regional theatre with pivotal forms and functions of Mulianxi examined, explicated and illustrated in association with the development of corresponding genres of xiqu. In so doing, every aspect of Mulianxi is considered not in the margins of xiqu but in and of itself. While this volume is primarily concerned with Mulianxi, references are also made to other forms of Chinese performing arts and temple theatre, Nuoxi in particular, as Mulianxi has been performed since the twelfth century as, or in company with, Nuoxi, to cleanse the community of evil spirits and epidemic diseases. This is an interdisciplinary book project that is aimed to help researchers and students of theatre history understand the ritual origins of Chinese theatre and the dynamic relationships among myth, ritual, religion and theatre.
Chinese Traditional Theatre and Male Dan: Social Power, Cultural Change and Gender Relations (Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies)
by Guo ChaoThis book examines male dan, a male actor who performs female roles in Chinese theatre. Through the rise, fall and tenuous survival of male dan in Chinese history, Guo Chao reflects the transformations in the social zeitgeist in China, especially the politics of gender and sexuality. The breadth of this study reflects a diversified set of sources, ranging from classical to contemporary texts (texts of jingju plays, memoirs, collections of notation books) and other commentaries and critical evaluations of dan actors (in both English and Chinese languages), to video and audio materials, films, and personal interviews. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of East Asian/Chinese studies across the fields of theatre, history, culture, and literature.
Chinese Urban Shi-nema: Cinematicity, Society and Millennial China
by Simon Harrison David H. FlemingThis book dives into the mise-en-scène of contemporary China to explore the “becoming cinema” of Chinese cities, societies, and subjectivities. Set in the wake of China’s radical and rapid period of urbanization and infrastructural transformation, and situating itself in the processual city of Ningbo, the book combines empirical, ficto-critical, and philosophical methods to generate a dynamic account of everyday life as new forms of consumer culture bed in. Harnessing a Realist approach that allows for different scales of analysis, the book zooms in on five architectural assemblages including: surreal real estate showrooms; a fragmented history museum; China’s “first and best” Sino-foreign university; a new “Old town”; and weird gamified “any-now(here)-spaces.” Together these modern arrangements and machines for living cast light upon the broader picture sweeping up greater China.
Chinese Women's Cinema: Transnational Contexts
by Lingzhen WangThe first of its kind in English, this collection covers twenty one well established and lesser known female filmmakers from mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the Chinese diaspora. Sixteen scholars illuminate these filmmakers' negotiations of local and global politics, cinematic representation, and issues of gender and sexuality, covering works from the 1920s to the present. Writing from the disciplines of film, Asian, women's, and auteur studies, contributors reclaim the work of Esther Eng, Tang Shu Shuen, Dong Kena, and Sylvia Chang, among others who have transformed Chinese cinematic modernity. This collection creates a unique transcultural, interdisciplinary conversation on authorship, feminist cinema, transnational gender, and cinematic agency and representation. Lingzhen Wang's comprehensive introduction recounts the history and limitations of established feminist film theory, particularly its relationship with female cinematic authorship and agency. She also reviews critiques of classical feminist film theory, along with recent developments in feminist practice, ultimately remapping feminist film discourse within transnational and interdisciplinary contexts. Wang's subsequent redefinition of women's cinema and brief history of women's cinematic practices in modern China encourage the reader to reposition gender and cinema within a transnational feminist configuration, especially in such a way that power and knowledge are reexamined among and across cultures and nation-states.
Chinese Women’s Cinema: Transnational Contexts (Film and Culture Series)
by Lingzhen WangThe first of its kind in English, this collection explores twenty one well established and lesser known female filmmakers from mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the Chinese diaspora. Sixteen scholars illuminate these filmmakers' negotiations of local and global politics, cinematic representation, and issues of gender and sexuality, covering works from the 1920s to the present. Writing from the disciplines of Asian, women's, film, and auteur studies, contributors reclaim the work of Esther Eng, Tang Shu Shuen, Dong Kena, and Sylvia Chang, among others, who have transformed Chinese cinematic modernity.Chinese Women's Cinema is a unique, transcultural, interdisciplinary conversation on authorship, feminist cinema, transnational gender, and cinematic agency and representation. Lingzhen Wang's comprehensive introduction recounts the history and limitations of established feminist film theory, particularly its relationship with female cinematic authorship and agency. She also reviews critiques of classical feminist film theory, along with recent developments in feminist practice, altogether remapping feminist film discourse within transnational and interdisciplinary contexts. Wang's subsequent redefinition of women's cinema, and brief history of women's cinematic practices in modern China, encourage the reader to reposition gender and cinema within a transnational feminist configuration, such that power and knowledge are reexamined among and across cultures and nation-states.
Chino and the Dance of the Butterfly: A Memoir
by Dana Tai BurgessRenowned Korean American modern-dance choreographer Dana Tai Soon Burgess shares his deeply personal hyphenated world and how his multifaceted background drives his prolific art-making in Chino and the Dance of the Butterfly. The memoir traces how his choreographic aesthetic, based on the fluency of dance and the visual arts, was informed by his early years in Santa Fe, New Mexico. This insightful journey delves into an artist&’s process that is inspired by the intersection of varying cultural perspectives, stories, and experiences. Candid and intelligent, Burgess gives readers the opportunity to experience up close the passion for art and dance that has informed his life.
Chocolate Woman Dreams the Milky Way: Mapping Embodied Indigenous Performance (Theater: Theory/Text/Performance)
by Brenda Farnell Monique MojicaThis volume documents the creation of Chocolate Woman Dreams the Milky Way, a play written and performed by Monique Mojica with collaborators from diverse disciplines. Inspired by the pictographic writing and mola textiles of the Guna, an indigenous people of Panama and Colombia, the book explores Mojica’s unique approach to the performance process. Her method activates an Indigenous theatrical process that privileges the body in contrast to Western theater’s privileging of the written text, and rethinks the role of land, body, and movement, as well as dramatic story-structure and performance style. Co-authored with anthropologist Brenda Farnell, the book challenges the divide between artist and scholar, and addresses the many levels of cultural, disciplinary, and linguistic translations required to achieve this. Placing the complex intellect inherent to Indigenous Knowledges at its center, the book engages Indigenous performance theory, and concepts that link body, land, and story, such as terra nullius/corpus nullius, mapping, pattern literacy, land literacy, and movement literacy. Enhanced by contributions from other artists and scholars, the book challenges Eurocentric ideologies about what counts as “performance” and what is required from an “audience,” as well as long-standing body-mind dualisms.
Chocolate and Cuckoo Clocks: The Essential Alan Coren
by Alan CorenA hilarious anthology of comic treasures written by Britain&’s &“comic genius&”—the former editor of Punch and beloved regular on BBC&’s Radio 4 (The Times). Alan Coren was one of contemporary Britain&’s most prolific humorists. Over his forty-year career, Coren wrote comic and satirical pieces for The New Yorker, The Times, Observer, Tatler, Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, and Punch, and published more than twenty books including The Sanity Inspector, Golfing for Cats and The Collected Bulletins of Idi Amin. This anthology draws together the best of Coren&’s previously published material as well as never-before-published autobiographical material. In these pages, you will find the queen at a loose end playing I-Spy, QPR fans arguing at the cheese counter, prank phone calls to Mao Tse-Tung, the Roman tax collector Glutinus Sinus dealing with the mud-caked Britons, Gatling guns, an Italian driving school, herons, hearing aids, hosepipe bans, talking parrots . . . Welcome to the wonderful world of the late, great Alan Coren! &“Truly funny.&” —Stephen Fry, actor, producer, director, and author of The Hippopotamus
Chocolate, Please: My Adventures in Food, Fat, and Freaks
by Lisa LampanelliAn inside look at the life of Comedy's Lovable Queen of Mean, Lisa Lampanelli, as she dishes on everything from relationships, food, and fat to why once you go black, you never go back In her jaw-droppingly hilarious and politically incorrect memoir, Lisa reveals all—including the dysfunctional childhood that made her the insult comic she is today, the subject for which she's best known (black men, black men, and more black men), and her hilarious struggles with her addiction to food and hot guys. By telling her story in her very real, very candid, very open way, Lisa shows her audience that it's okay to be yourself, even if it's just one rehab stint at a time. Lisa also takes readers behind the scenes at the roasts that have marked her comedy career and launched her into the comedy elite, and reveals the important "firsts" in her career, including her first time on her hero's program, The Howard Stern Show.Chocolate, Please is a side-splittingly funny portrait of the woman behind the award-winning insult comedy.
Chocolate: The Consuming Passion
by Sandra BoyntonA New York Times bestseller with over a half-million copies in print, CHOCOLATE continues to delight chocoholics everywhere. Packed with Boynton's famous hippos, bunnies, pigs, and other animals, this gift-perfect book is a whimsical commentary on the individual's relationship to chocolate, its varieties, and its sources. From the several sorts of chocolate connoisseur-including the gourmoo, who eats only milk chocolate-to the several shapes of chocolate itself (bunny, kiss, glove compartment bar), Boynton's apologia for chocolate misses nothing. Myths are debunked: chocolate is not fattening, she argues, especially when the caloric expenditure of carrying it home from the store and hiding it from company is factored in. Directions are supplied: to remove stains, lick them. Plus, how to grow chocolate at home, a foolproof method for determining if chocolate is in season (does the name of the month contain the letter A, E, or U?), and a recipe for Hippo Pot de Mousse. "Fourteen out of ten people like chocolate," says the artist. This is the only guide for people who like chocolate the way they like to breathe. Vanilla people, keep out. Selection of the Literary Guild.
Choctaw Tales
by Tom MouldIncluding stories from the 1700s to today, Choctaw Tales showcases the mythic, the legendary and supernatural, the prophecies and histories, the animal fables and jokes that make up the rich and lively Choctaw storytelling tradition. The stories display intelligence, artistry, and creativity as Choctaw narrators, past and present, express and struggle with beliefs, values, humor, and life experiences. Photographs of the storytellers complement the text. For sixteen tales, the Choctaw-language version appears in addition to the English translation. Many of these stories, passed down through generations, address the Choctaw sense of isolation and tension as storytellers confront eternal, historical, and personal questions about the world and its inhabitants. Choctaw Tales, the first book to collect these stories, creates a comprehensive gathering of oral traditions from the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians. Each story brings to life the complex and colorful world of the Choctaw tribe and its legend and lore. The shukha anumpa include tall tales, jokes, and stories of rabbits, turtles, and bears. The stories of the elders are populated by spirits that bring warnings and messages to the people. These tales provide a spectrum of legend and a glimpse of a vibrant, thriving legacy.
Choctaw Tales: Stories from the Firekeepers
by Tom Mould Rae Nell VaughnFrom the earliest stories recorded among the Choctaw in the 1700s to the most recent stories being told today, Choctaw Tales: Stories from the Firekeepers amasses the most comprehensive collection of oral traditions of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians ever published. Originally published in 2004, Choctaw Tales was a celebration of the art of storytelling, including myths, legends, supernatural tales, prophecies, historical anecdotes, tall tales, and animal stories. Through these stories, which include fifty new stories in this edition, Choctaw narrators create, express, and negotiate their beliefs, values, humor, and life experiences, as well as those of their ancestors before them. Their stories display the intelligence, artistry, and creativity of storytellers past and present. Choctaw Tales includes new and expanded materials to keep this valued resource current. Nestled in the middle of Mississippi woodlands, the Choctaw have long been an elusive community to outsiders. Racial prejudice and historical mistreatment made the Choctaw wary of their neighbors. Many of their stories address this tension, both subtly and boldly. Virtually all the stories tackle either cosmological, historical, relational, or personal questions about the world and its inhabitants, offering complex responses in the guise of seemingly simple stories. For the Choctaw audience, the stories often need little explanation. However, a series of essays on Choctaw storytelling, coupled with careful annotation of each story and short biographies of each storyteller, help make this vibrant oral tradition understandable to today’s general audiences.
Choctaw Traditions: Stories of the Life and Customs of the Mississippi Choctaw
by Eddie Johnson Tom Mould Jay WesleyThere are thousands of books that record the oral traditions of Native peoples, documenting their myths, legends, folktales, and tribal histories. Yet, there are almost none that pay the same attention to the oral traditions that make up the other 95 percent of Native American storytelling: the personal, familial, humble stories that convey the depth of cultural knowledge, traditional practices, and lived experience of Native peoples today.Choctaw Traditions: Stories of the Life and Customs of the Mississippi Choctaw draws on over 1,400 stories from interviews with over one hundred tribal members, past and present, from all of the nine Choctaw communities in Mississippi and Tennessee. This breadth creates a collection of stories capturing the rich detail and complexity of Choctaw customary life. Archival stories offer a glimpse into the past, but the vast majority of the stories were recorded over the past three decades, a collaboration between Choctaw youth, Choctaw elders, Choctaw leaders, and a folklorist.In their own words, Choctaw elders tell stories of participating in customs and traditions—stories about growing up sharecropping, where the work to put food on the table was balanced with weekends of ballgames, picnics, and dancing. They recount stories of helping each other when an iyyikowa was called to help their neighbors in need, and in gathering seasonally for ceremonies, holidays, festivals, and fundraisers. Important customs that structure lives from cradle to grave come to life through stories about the dos and don’ts of pregnancy and birth, coming of age, courtship, weddings, marriage, parenting, deaths, wakes, and funerals. With these stories, Choctaw elders offer a blueprint for how to live.
Choking on Marlon Brando: A Film Critic's Memoir About Love and the Movies
by Antonia QuirkeIn this witty and bittersweet memoir, the film critic shares her misadventures as a lover of film stars who seeks movie romance in the real world. Antonia Quirke was ten years old when she first saw Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire. It was the first film she ever saw, and her reaction was so intense that her parents called an ambulance. So began her lifelong love of movies—an obsession that has brought as much drama and comedy to her actual life as she sees on screen. In Choking on Marlon Brando, Quirke offers a window into her life as a film critic, her unabashed infatuation with male screen idols, and her many real-life romances that never quite make the cut. We learn of her personal ad seeking Tom Cruise, and her bungled interview with Jeff Bridges; the writer boyfriend who never brushed his teeth, and the actor boyfriend whose family showed up nude to a party. Along the way, Quirke provides witty insight into the nature of celebrity, fandom, the movies we all love, and how different they are from reality. “Fans of snappy writing, movie actors and dead-end romance will find Quirke’s book a treat.” —Publishers Weekly
Choose It! Videogame Edition
by Welbeck Children's BooksThis book is full of fun, clever and extremely silly "Would You Rather" questions starring your favorite videogame characters and worlds. Some might make you think, and others might make you laugh. Either way, YOU supply the answer!Would you rather fight four Mario-sized Bowsers, or one Bowser-sized Mario? Would you rather sniff Sonic's stinky sneakers, or Tom Nook's underpants? Would you rather eat soup made of goombas, or a Koopa Trooper sandwich? Would you rather be an exploding Creeper, or a Pac-Man ghost? All these and many more gaming-related "Would You Rather" questions are inside, complete with fun illustrations, silly gaming jokes and a top selection of gaming facts!
Choosing Death: The Improbable History of Death Metal and Grindcore
by Albert MudrianThis exciting history, featuring an introduction by famed DJ John Peel, tells the two-decade-long history of grindcore and death metal through the eyes and ringing ears of the artists, producers, and label owners who propelled them.
Chords of Strength: A Memoir of Soul, Song, and the Power of Perseverance
by David ArchuletaSinging sensation and American Idol favorite David Archuleta tells his inspiring personal story. A runner-up on American Idol and successful music artist, David Archuleta was named one of the "breakout stars of 2008" by Forbes magazine and landed the number two spot on the Billboard charts. In Chords of Strength, David shares his unexpected and inspiring journey, including how he overcame vocal cord paralysis to achieve his dream of being a singer. He reveals insecurities he felt about his voice - before he realized that he loved the way singing made him feel more than he disliked the way he sounded. In this personal memoir, David opens up about the strength he draws from his unshakable faith and unyielding family. He pays tribute to those who continue to inspire him and through their example help him believe in himself, his talent, and his abilities. Intimate and uplifting, Chords of Strength allows a unique glimpse of the man behind the music and offers hope to anyone with a passion and a dream.
Choreographic Dwellings
by Gretchen Schiller Sarah RubidgeChoreographic Dwellings explores performance practices that extend the remit of the choreographic. Covering walking practices, site-specific and nomadic performance that explore the movement potentials of everyday environments, parkour and art installation, it offers a reframing of the topologically kinaesthetic experience of the choreographic.
Choreographic Dwellings: Practising Place (New World Choreographies)
by G. Schiller S. RubidgeChoreographic Dwellings: Practising Place offers new readings of the kinaesthetic experiences of site-specific and nomadic performance, parkour, installation and walking practices. It extends the remit of the choreographic by reframing the kinaesthetic qualities of place as action.
Choreographic Politics: State Folk Dance Companies, Representation and Power
by Anthony ShayOver the past fifty years national dance companies from Turkey, Egypt, Mexico, Greece, the former USSR and Croatia have dominated concert stages throughout the world. Anthony Shay makes coherent sense of these national programs, which have previously received scant academic attention. Specifically, he looks at the ways through which these companies spread political, ethnic and cultural messages by accruing symbolic and cultural capital for their respective nation-states. In his analysis, Shay draws on cultural studies, political science and anthropology to create a work that cuts across disciplines. As the first book to address the topic of state-sponsored folk dance ensembles and their structures, Choreographic Politics examines the repertoires, performances and choreographic strategies of these companies within the political, social, gendered and ethnic contexts in which each company was created. In addition, Shay's study includes a look at music, costumes, and various artistic directors and choreographers.
Choreographic Practice in Online Pedagogy (Creativity, Education and the Arts)
by Peter J. CookThis book examines a creative approach to exploring choreographic practice artistically, theoretically, and pedagogically. It explores the interweaving of dance, dance teaching, dance onto-epistemologies, and choreography with a particular focus on creating dance with digital technologies. The idea of centring choreography in dance education fundamentally challenges typical conceptions of best practice in the preparation and delivery, appropriateness, and effectiveness of dance performance, teaching and learning experiences. It purposefully privileges creativity as a critical learning paradigm, extending the ways in which creativity studies are enriching performance scholarship as well as performance teaching. The book acknowledges the importance of the artist teacher nexus and presents choreographic practice as the centre of learning in dance, with a focus on digital platforms.
Choreographics: A Comparison of Dance Notation Systems from the Fifteenth Century to the Present
by Ann Hutchinson GuestHere for the first time is an account of how each of thirteen historical as well as present-day systems cope with indicating body movement, time, space (direction and level) and other basic movement aspects of paper. A one-to-one comparison is made of how the same simple patterns, such as walking, jumping, turning, etc. are notated in each system.