Overview

Analyses the expansion of head and body masking from nineteenth-century Paris to its international maturity in contemporary culture Looks at the presence and development of masquerade in the modernist era - via performance history - with parallel references to theatricality and performativity in visual arts and visual cultureComments upon masquerade's foundation in popular performance throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, frequently alluding to significant images from the history of photographyTheorises masquerade within the context of European theatre and drama scholarship, as well as British and European conservatory arts and performance trainingEmploys critical thinking influenced by phenomenological and semiotic analyses of performance This book highlights that masquerade can be regarded as a distinct genre of performance activity that employs elements of the carnivalesque, circus, dance, gestural theatre and theatre of objects. Popenhagen traces artistic disguising from fin de siecle Pierrots in Paris, Marseille and Vienna to early twentieth--century masquerading in Moscow and Zrich. He explores identity play and display through the complementary lenses of image studies, cultural history and performance theory.

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9781474470063

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Reviews

"""Spanning modernism this book affords a refreshed lens on masquerade as character play, embodiment and theatricality. A timely argument for amplified attention to disguise, bodyscapes and performative aspects of the image in this chaotic and unpredictable world."" -Kim Snepvangers, University of New South Wales, Sydney: Art & Design"

""Spanning modernism this book affords a refreshed lens on masquerade as character play, embodiment and theatricality. A timely argument for amplified attention to disguise, bodyscapes and performative aspects of the image in this chaotic and unpredictable world."" -Kim Snepvangers, University of New South Wales, Sydney: Art & Design

Author Information

Ron J. Popenhagen is Professor of Visual Culture and Performance at California State University. He formerly lectured in Theatre at the University of Southern California and the Sydney University Conservatorium of Music. Dr Popenhagen is a specialist in Actor-Training, Mise en sc ne, Masks and Masquerade. He has published on French and Swiss actors, choreographers, directors, playwrights and scenographers, and also on Irish literature. Popenhagen has staged opera and theatre productions of Cocteau, Ionesco, Moli re, Shakespeare and Wilde in Australia and the States. He has toured devised theatre projects to festivals in Adelaide, Ankara, Edinburgh, Houston, Los Angeles, Vancouver and Vilnius. Ron has written, devised and directed theatre projects for the Australian Theatre for Young People and toured 'Informances' for Young Audiences, Inc. to American cities.

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