Janet Wolff and Mike Savage (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780719090387
- eISBN:
- 9781781707128
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719090387.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture
This book brings together studies of cultural institutions in Manchester from 1850 to the present day, giving an unprecedented account of the city’s cultural evolution. These bring to light the ...
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This book brings together studies of cultural institutions in Manchester from 1850 to the present day, giving an unprecedented account of the city’s cultural evolution. These bring to light the remarkable range of Manchester’s contribution to modern cultural life, including the role of art education, popular theatre, religion, pleasure gardens, clubs and societies. The chapters show the resilience and creativity of Manchester’s cultural institutions since 1850, challenging any simple narrative of urban decline following the erosion of Lancashire’s industrial base, at the same time illustrating the range of activities across the social classes. The essays are organized chronologically. They consider the role of calico printers in the rise of art education in Britain; the origins and early years of the Belle Vue Zoological Gardens; the formation of the Manchester Dante Society in 1906; the importance of theatre architecture in the social life of the city; the place of religion in early twentieth-century Manchester, in the case of its Methodist Mission; the cosmopolitan nature of the Manchester International Club, founded in 1937; cultural participation in contemporary Manchester; and questions of culture and class in the case of a contemporary theatre group.Less
This book brings together studies of cultural institutions in Manchester from 1850 to the present day, giving an unprecedented account of the city’s cultural evolution. These bring to light the remarkable range of Manchester’s contribution to modern cultural life, including the role of art education, popular theatre, religion, pleasure gardens, clubs and societies. The chapters show the resilience and creativity of Manchester’s cultural institutions since 1850, challenging any simple narrative of urban decline following the erosion of Lancashire’s industrial base, at the same time illustrating the range of activities across the social classes. The essays are organized chronologically. They consider the role of calico printers in the rise of art education in Britain; the origins and early years of the Belle Vue Zoological Gardens; the formation of the Manchester Dante Society in 1906; the importance of theatre architecture in the social life of the city; the place of religion in early twentieth-century Manchester, in the case of its Methodist Mission; the cosmopolitan nature of the Manchester International Club, founded in 1937; cultural participation in contemporary Manchester; and questions of culture and class in the case of a contemporary theatre group.
Malcolm Chase
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780719091698
- eISBN:
- 9781526109989
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719091698.003.0011
- Subject:
- History, Social History
This chapter uses the momentous year of 1820 as the lens through which to investigate the convergence of the dramatic and the radical. In the wake of ‘Peterloo’ the previous August, the Tory ...
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This chapter uses the momentous year of 1820 as the lens through which to investigate the convergence of the dramatic and the radical. In the wake of ‘Peterloo’ the previous August, the Tory Government had pushed through Parliament a cluster of repressive measures, ‘the Six Acts.’ These shackled the popular press and severely limited freedom of assembly and speech; but, crucially, they left theatres untouched. Chase offers a counter-view to conventional histories of the theatre of the period, which do little more than note of 1820 that, with the death of George III, it was once again possible to stage King Lear. However, this is almost the least interesting thing about theatrical performances in 1820. The often tumultuous reception of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, Cymbeline, Henry VIII and Julius Caesar, the revival of other plays no-longer familiar to us (such as Duncombe’s Brutus [1735] and Otway’s Venice Preserved [1682]), and controversies surrounding new dramas, especially James Sheridan Knowles’ Virginius, all point to a radicalisation of drama.Less
This chapter uses the momentous year of 1820 as the lens through which to investigate the convergence of the dramatic and the radical. In the wake of ‘Peterloo’ the previous August, the Tory Government had pushed through Parliament a cluster of repressive measures, ‘the Six Acts.’ These shackled the popular press and severely limited freedom of assembly and speech; but, crucially, they left theatres untouched. Chase offers a counter-view to conventional histories of the theatre of the period, which do little more than note of 1820 that, with the death of George III, it was once again possible to stage King Lear. However, this is almost the least interesting thing about theatrical performances in 1820. The often tumultuous reception of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, Cymbeline, Henry VIII and Julius Caesar, the revival of other plays no-longer familiar to us (such as Duncombe’s Brutus [1735] and Otway’s Venice Preserved [1682]), and controversies surrounding new dramas, especially James Sheridan Knowles’ Virginius, all point to a radicalisation of drama.
Anna Servaes
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781628462104
- eISBN:
- 9781626745599
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781628462104.003.0009
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Social Groups
As theatrical play, La Guiannée is a traveling theatre, performing for the public. Folklore or popular theatre represents the manner in which the collective views itself and its history. By immersing ...
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As theatrical play, La Guiannée is a traveling theatre, performing for the public. Folklore or popular theatre represents the manner in which the collective views itself and its history. By immersing themselves in the colonial characters, the guionneurs undergo a transformation through rites of passage. The first stage, separation, the guionneurs physically separate themselves from other community members, which alters their position to a sacred status. A second separation occurs when the Guiannée gathers before entering the sacred performance space. During the second stage, the performance or liminal period, the guionneurs perform before the other members of the community, initiating a transformation in the public from ordinary to sacred community. The performers and the audience share the cultural space to revive their history. The transformation from ordinary to sacred is complete during the last stage of reintegration, in which the spectator assumes the role of performer to entertain the guionneurs.Less
As theatrical play, La Guiannée is a traveling theatre, performing for the public. Folklore or popular theatre represents the manner in which the collective views itself and its history. By immersing themselves in the colonial characters, the guionneurs undergo a transformation through rites of passage. The first stage, separation, the guionneurs physically separate themselves from other community members, which alters their position to a sacred status. A second separation occurs when the Guiannée gathers before entering the sacred performance space. During the second stage, the performance or liminal period, the guionneurs perform before the other members of the community, initiating a transformation in the public from ordinary to sacred community. The performers and the audience share the cultural space to revive their history. The transformation from ordinary to sacred is complete during the last stage of reintegration, in which the spectator assumes the role of performer to entertain the guionneurs.
