Kenneth King is one of America's most inventive postmodern choreographers. His dancing has always reflected his interest in language and technology, combining movement with film, machines, lighting and words both spoken and written. King is also conversant in philosophy, and some of his most influential dances have been dedicated to and in dialogue with the work of such philosophers as Susanne K. Langer, Edmund Husserl and Friedrich Nietzsche. Since the 1960s, he has performed his dance to texts both spoken and prerecorded-texts intended to stand separately as literary works.Writing in Motion spans more than thirty years and is collected here for the first time. It includes essays, performance scripts of King's own work, art criticism, philosophy and cultural commentary. Dense with movement, these writings explode and reconfigure the familiar, crack syntax open, and invent startling new words. Dancing, to King, is "writing in space," and writing is a dance of ideas. Whether referencing Aristotle, Langer, Simone de Beauvoir, MTV, Maurice Blanchot or Marshall McLuhan, King's delightfully lavish prose is very much "in motion."

Moving from web to field, from Victorian parlor to 21st-century mall, the 15 essays gathered here yield new insights regarding the intersection of local culture, musical creativity and technological possibilities. Inspired by the concept of "technoculture," the authors locate technology squarely in the middle of expressive culture: they are concerned with how technology culturally informs and infuses aspects of everyday life and musical experience, and they argue that this merger does not necessarily result in a "cultural grayout," but instead often produces exciting new possibilities. In this collection, we find evidence of musical practices and ways of knowing music that are informed or even significantly transformed by new technologies, yet remain profoundly local in style and meaning. CONTRIBUTORS: Leslie C. Gay, Jr., Kai Fikentscher, Tong Soon Lee, René T. A. Lysloff, Matthew Malsky, Charity Marsh, Marc Perlman, Thomas Porcello, Andrew Ross, David Sanjek, jonathan Sterne, Janet L. Sturman, Timothy D. Taylor, Paul Théberge, Melissa West, Deborah Wong.

This collection of classic and new writings on dance improvisation brings together 21 essays by prominent dancers, scholars and historians. Until now, discussion of improvisation in dance has focused mainly on the postmodern form known as contact improv. Taken by Surprise reflects the development of improvisation as a compositional and performance mode in a wide variety of dance contexts, including dance traditions from around the globe, such as Yoruban masked dance, Indian Bharatanatyam and flamenco. The book also includes a thoughtful look at computer-aided choreography, a discussion of recent innovations in tap dancing and a section on improvisation in everyday life. Combining primary sources with critical analysis, Taken by Surprise will serve as an indispensible companion to studio work in improvisation, and a much-needed supplement to twentieth century dance histories. CONTRIBUTORS: Ann Cooper Albright, Sally Banes, Bruce Curtis, Kent Despain, Margaret Thompson Drewal, Simone Forti, Susan Leigh Foster, David Gere, Raymond W. Gibbs, JR, Michelle Heffner Hayes, Carmela Hermann, Constance Valis Hill, Rachel Kaplan, Maura Keefe, Victoria Marks, Avanthi Meduri, Steve Paxton, Janice Ross, Karen Schaffman, Nancy Stark Smith, Ellen Webb, Ruth Zaporah.

While best known as one of the most important playwrights of the twentieth century, Harold Pinter held an equally successful career writing screenplays. His collaborations with English director Joseph Losey garnered great attention and esteem, and he was nominated for two Academy Awards for best screenplay: The French Lieutenant's Woman in 1981 and Betrayal in 1983 . He is also credited for writing an unproduced script to remake Stanley Kubrick's 1962 adaptation of Lolita. Much scholarship has been dedicated to the subject of Pinter as playwright, but the rich landscape of his work in film has been left largely undisturbed.In Sharp Cut: Harold Pinter's Screenplays and the Artistic Process, Steven H. Gale, the world's foremost Pinter scholar, analyzes Pinter's creative process from initial conception to finished film. Gale makes careful, point-by-point comparisons of each stage in the screenplay's creation -- the source material, the adaptations themselves, and the films made from the scripts -- in order to reveal the meaning behind each film script and to explain the cinematic techniques used to express that meaning.Unlike most Pinter scholars, who focus almost solely on the written word, Gale devotes discussion to the cinematic interpretation of the scripts through camera angles and movement, cutting, and other techniques. Pinter does not merely convert his stage scripts to screenplays; he adapts the works to succeed in the other medium, avoiding elements of the live play that do not work onscreen and using the camera's focusing operations in ways that are not possible on the stage.As Pinter's career progressed and his writing evolved, screenplays became for him an increasingly vital means of creative expression. Sharp Cut is the first study to fully explore this important component of the Pinter canon.

The Teatro Solís in Montevideo, Uruguay-established in 1856 and still operating-is the oldest theater in the Americas. Solís audiences thrilled to the lyricism of many of the great singers of the 19th Century, among them Adelina Patti, Romilda Pantaleoni, Gemma Bellincioni, and Enrico Caruso, accompanied by a 285-member company. Programs also featured orchestra and dance: the theater played host to dancer Vaslav Nijinksy's last stage performance and presented Puccini, Mascagni, Saint-Saëns and Richard Strauss. Susana Salgado's lively historical account-the very first of its kind-is enriched by anecdotes, reviews and illustrations. A complete narrative chronology of performances is indexed by performer and work, making this book a rare treat for opera buffs and an invaluable resource for scholars in the fields of music and dance history, American studies, and Latin American studies.

While other artists moved to New York or Paris, painter Samuel Rosenberg (1896-1972) never left the city he called home. From the age of twelve, when he took his first art class at a settlement house in Pittsburgh's Hill District, through a vigorous career that spanned six decades, Rosenberg was challenged by the complex city whose artistic legacy he did much to shape. In Pittsburgh, Rosenberg created more than five hundred paintings, engaged with the dynamic progress of American painting in the twentieth century, and inspired generations of students. This book is the first full study of his work and influence.The constancyof Rosenberg's career was change. He began as a portraitist (1915-1930), influenced by Velazquez, Rembrandt, Matisse, and later, Picasso. In the 1930s, however, Rosenberg turned to portray the city around him. Inspired by the steep hills, densely polluted atmosphere, crooked houses, and layered immigrant populations with intersecting poverties, he created emotional urban landscapes that ensured Pittsburgh's place in the American regionalist art movement.Rosenberg's focus was the Hill District, where he lived as a young man. In poignant, socially conscious paintings, he traced the transitions of this gritty, multiethnic neighborhood through the Great Depression and Pittsburgh's early experiments in urban renewal. "Yes, I know there are artists in town who sneer at Pittsburgh, who want to go to Venice and paint canals," Rosenberg told a reporter. "But the artist who dislikes the town should . . . stay here and put his hate into pictures of the Pittsburgh scene. In doing so, he would have something to say."In the 1940s, responding to the horrors of World War II, Rosenberg's subjects became more universal and allegorical. In paintings such as Israel (1945), his most reproduced work, haunting human figures do not allow viewers to remain indifferent to the world situation. Here he began experiments with abstraction and the quality of light, a search he would continue for the rest of his life.From 1949 until his death in 1972, Rosenberg developed his own form of abstract expressionism, translating emotion with color, but without entirely abandoning representation. Using sequential layers of translucent color and transparent glazes, Rosenberg was able to achieve a penetrating, shimmering effect in his work. His paintings from this period are reminiscent of stained glass windows in that they seem to emit light rather than reflect it.Samuel Rosenberg's paintings were exhibited widely, from the World's Fair (1939) to the nation's preeminent museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. He had twenty-six solo exhibitions during his lifetime, and he was accepted into the prestigious Carnegie International in 1920, 1925, and every subsequent exhibition from 1933 to 1967.But it is possible that Rosenberg's most enduring legacy is his teaching. For more than forty years he taught drawing and painting at Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University), where his students included Philip Pearlstein, Mel Bochner, and Andy Warhol-whom Rosenberg saved from expulsion in 1947. He chaired the art department at the Pennsylvania College for Women (now Chatham College). He directed art programs and taught for decades at two community art schools: the Irene Kaufmann Settlement in the Hill District and the Isaac Seder Educational Center for the Young Men's and Women's Hebrew Association, which merged in 1961. A revered and devoted master teacher, he awakened several generations of Pittsburgh artists to the "adventure," as he called it, of art.Samuel Rosenberg: Portrait of a Painter accompanies the first major retrospective of his work since 1960. In a thorough and carefully researched essay, accompanying eighty-two color and fifty black-and-white reproductions, curator Barbara L. Jones tells the story of Rosenberg's life, his evolving artistic vision, and his teaching legacy. She also provides biographical, exhibition, and award chronologies, along with a complete catalog of paintings and preparatory sketches. Lively sidebars by regional historians Barbara Burstin, Eric Davin, and Laurence Glasco, and by artist and former student Bennard Perlman, give social and cultural context, recreating the Pittsburgh in which this remarkable artist lived and worked.

From Ken Burns's documentaries to historical dramas such as Roots, from A&E's Biography series to CNN, television has become the primary source for historical information for tens of millions of Americans today. Why has television become such a respected authority? What falsehoods enter our collective memory as truths? How is one to know what is real and what is imagined -- or ignored -- by producers, directors, or writers?Gary Edgerton and Peter Rollins have collected a group of essays that answer these and many other questions. The contributors examine the full spectrum of historical genres, but also institutions such as the History Channel and production histories of such series as The Jack Benny Show, which ran for fifteen years. The authors explore the tensions between popular history and professional history, and the tendency of some academics to declare the past "off limits" to nonscholars. Several of them point to the tendency for television histories to embed current concerns and priorities within the past, as in such popular shows as Quantum Leap and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. The result is an insightful portrayal of the power television possesses to influence our culture.

Among America's most unusual and successful weapons during the Cold War were Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. RFE-RL had its origins in a post-war America brimming with confidence and secure in its power. Unlike the Voice of America, which conveyed a distinctly American perspective on global events, RFE-RL served as surrogate home radio services and a vital alternative to the controlled, party-dominated domestic press in Eastern Europe. Over twenty stations featured programming tailored to individual countries. They reached millions of listeners ranging from industrial workers to dissident leaders such as Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel.Broadcasting Freedom draws on rare archival material and offers a penetrating insider history of the radios that helped change the face of Europe. Arch Puddington reveals new information about the connections between RFE-RL and the CIA, which provided covert funding for the stations during the critical start-up years in the early 1950s. He relates in detail the efforts of Soviet and Eastern Bloc officials to thwart the stations; their tactics ranged from jamming attempts, assassinations of radio journalists, the infiltration of spies onto the radios' staffs, and the bombing of the radios' headquarters.Puddington addresses the controversies that engulfed the stations throughout the Cold War, most notably RFE broadcasts during the Hungarian Revolution that were described as inflammatory and irresponsible. He shows how RFE prevented the Communist authorities from establishing a monopoly on the dissemination of information in Poland and describes the crucial roles played by the stations as the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union broke apart.Broadcasting Freedom is also a portrait of the Cold War in America. Puddington offers insights into the strategic thinking of the RFE-RL leadership and those in the highest circles of American government, including CIA directors, secretaries of state, and even presidents.

One of America's most renowned film scholars, Jeanine Basinger, offers a revealing, perceptive and highly readable look at the combat film. Discussing over one thousand movies, Basinger covers in-depth the key examples of the genre and uses them to define the meaning of genre itself. From "Bataan" to "Battleground" to "The Dirty Dozen" to "Saving Private Ryan," the book traces the evolution of the combat genre, as its recurring characters, plots and events are used and reused over time. There is also a section outlining what happens when women replace men in combat and when the subject is treated as comedy. First published in 1986, this updated and expanded edition of the book contains a new introduction, a new chapter on "Saving Private Ryan" and an updated filmography. This is an essential text for anyone seriously interested in genre, movies, and with 38 photographs, as much a treat to look at as it is to read.

Stephanie Byram was an active, athletic young woman entering the prime of her life. She held dreams of earning her doctorate, pursing a career, falling in love, and starting a family. A doctor's visit, shortly after her thirtieth birthday, changed everything. She had been concerned about a painful, swollen right breast, and tests confirmed the presence of a tumor. Stephanie was diagnosed with highly aggressive, highly malignant breast cancer-Stage IIIb infiltrative ductal carcinoma-and within two months she underwent a double mastectomy. Doctors gave her a 50 percent chance of surviving five years.Despite this prognosis, Stephanie looked to the future, and refused to be deterred by the obstacles thrown suddenly into her path. Though she was rarely cancer-free and suffered recurrences that were progressively more invasive and damaging to her body, over the course of the next eight years she would live a life of her choosing.Stephanie fell in love, married, and bought a home. She earned her Ph.D., and even found the time and energy to revise her dissertation topic to how women make medical decisions after they have been diagnosed with life-threatening illnesses. She traveled to London, Tibet, and Hawaii; went on safari in Zambia and Botswana, rang in the millennium atop the Great Barrier Reef; hiked the grueling, thirty-five-mile Inca trail to Machu Picchu on her honeymoon, just weeks after a devastating recurrence; and visited the Grand Canyon before her death in June 2001.Stephanie came to appreciate the details and experiences found in a typical day. Learning to live in the moment, she found joy while playing with her cats, tending her garden, observing the birds jostling at the feeder, walking in the park by moonlight, laughing with friends. And running.Always an avid runner, Stephanie placed even greater importance on the sport following her diagnosis. She vowed to be the first person to run in each Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, and would eventually run in thirty out of sixty-one events. To help publicize this uncommon feat, she approached Charlee Brodsky about taking some photographs for inclusion in a press packet. What eventually evolved was much more.As their working relationship grew, so did their bond. Stephanie was Brodsky's subject, but they became collaborators and closer friends. They developed art exhibitions, a video, and often gave lectures, presentations, and inspirational talks to groups across the country. And, now, together they have created this book. Knowing Stephanie combines Brodsky's photographs and Stephanie's dialogue, which along with Jennifer Matesa's biographical essay, "Reconstructing a Life," paints a complete and compelling portrait of an extraordinary woman.For Stephanie, this project was an opportunity to visualize herself-her life and her body-differently. According to Brodsky, "She was able to transform her profound disappointment with the cards she was dealt into a life that was about living." In so doing, Stephanie has provided a treasure for us all.

The South -- an inspiration for songwriters, a source of styles, and the birthplace of many of the nation's greatest musicians -- plays a defining role in American musical history. It is impossible to think of American music of the past century without such southern-derived forms as ragtime, jazz, blues, country, bluegrass, gospel, rhythm and blues, Cajun, zydeco, Tejano, rock'n'roll, and even rap. Musicians and listeners around the world have made these vibrant styles their own. Southern Music/American Music is the first book to investigate the facets of American music from the South and the many popular forms that emerged from it. In this substantially revised and updated edition, Bill C. Malone and David Stricklin bring this classic work into the twenty-first century, including new material on recent phenomena such as the huge success of the soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou? and the renewed popularity of Southern music, as well as important new artists Lucinda Williams, Alejandro Escovedo, and the Dixie Chicks, among others. Extensive bibliographic notes and a new suggested listening guide complete this essential study.

Acknowledged as the journal of record in its field, American Furniture presents new research on furniture design, use, production, and appreciation. Begun in 1993, this award-winning annual provides a comprehensive forum on furniture history, technology, connoisseurship, and conservation by the foremost scholars in the field. It is the only interdisciplinary journal devoted exclusively to furniture made or used in the Americas from the 17th century to the present.

A stunningly-illustrated interweaving of first person narratives, photographs, cultural commentary and soundscapes, Bright Balkan Morning provides an unprecedented view of settled Romani lives in the Balkans and the unique roles of "Gypsy" instrument players in the region. These Romani instrumentalists from Iraklia, an ancient Greek Macedonian crossroads and market town that is home to about 2,000 Roma, provide the sounds that facilitate parties and rites of passage, performing an essential and highly valued service for their multicultural neighbors. At the heart of the book are ten first-person Romani life stories. Charles and Angeliki Keil situate these personal accounts within the cultural, historical and economic setting of Greek Macedonia, and provide an overview of musical events in diverse localities. The 161 black and white photographs by Dick Blau include parades, parties, weddings and wrestling matches; portraits of the musicians and their families; studies of domestic life in the Romani neighborhood; reproductions from Romani family albums and other historic images. Steven Feld's soundscape CD features the voices and instruments of people whose stories are told in the book. Familiar sounds of markets, church, neighborhood and countryside set the context for exuberant performances at home and at parties, cafes and nightclubs.CONTRIBUTORS: Angeliki Vellow Keil, Charles Keil, Steven Feld, Ian Hancock.

Indicates the place of painting in the Islamic world, both in relation to those theological circles which condemned the practice of it, and to those persons who, disregarding the prohibitions of religion, consulted their own taste in encouraging it.

This cultural study of modern dance icon Isadora Duncan is the first to place her within the thought, politics and art of her time. Duncan's dancing earned her international fame and influenced generations of American girls and women, yet the romantic myth that surrounds her has left some questions unanswered: What did her audiences see on stage, and how did they respond? What dreams and fears of theirs did she play out? Why, in short, was Duncan's dancing so compelling? First published in 1995 and now back in print, Done into Dance reveals Duncan enmeshed in social and cultural currents of her time - the moralism of the Progressive Era, the artistic radicalism of prewar Greenwich Village, the xenophobia of the 1920s, her association with feminism and her racial notion of "Americanness."