Customer Reviews (1)

Simply Incredible. Serious artists cannot go without this book.
With this stunning look into the world of performance art pedagogy, Charles Garoian firmly establishes himself as the world's premier performance artist and scholar. Artists cannot and should not take themselves seriously if this book doesn't hold an honored place on their bookshelf.

Highly recommended. ... Read more

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Peterson’s College Guide for Performing Arts Majorshelps students find the perfect college program for studying dance, music, or theater. The comprehensive profiles detail hundreds of professional baccalaureate and graduate degree programs, with the most current information on costs, deadlines, enrollment, faculty, financial aid, and more. Added features include in-depth advice from a former Juilliard admissions director on choosing a program and applying and auditioning, as well as articles written by current students about what it’s really like to major in theater, dance, or music. ... Read more

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This comprehensive directory provides the most thorough coverage available on resources for the performing arts. In this single volume, researchers will find information on a wide range of topics relating to theatre, film, radio, and television. The book provides documentation on collections as well as individuals. Divided into two main sections, the first part of the book gives resource information on collections and institutions with major holdings in each of the fields under consideration. The remainder of the volume is devoted primarily to a "who's who" of leading academics, archivists, critics, historians, librarians, and scholars in the performing arts. Entries include major accomplishments, publications, academic and professional affiliations, as well as general biographical information. Completing the work is a listing of useful addresses of publishers, bookshops, organizations, periodicals, studios, film commissions, television networks, guilds, unions, and associations. A comprehensive index provides ready access to persons, institutions, and collections referenced throughout. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Must Have For College Bound Performing Atrists
This book was very helpful in my quest in finding a quality arts school where I could get a degree in my field. Finding schools for the arts is a very difficult task and this book took away all of the guess work, thusletting me find aschool instead of picking the same old art school everyoneknows. Instead I found a school that was right fir me and my art. ... Read more

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The present work moves through three levels of understanding: (a) Components of the traditional Natya production as described in Natyasastra and other ancient Indian works; their interrelation and employment for the Rasa-oriented Sanskrit plays; (b) the evidence for the practice of these ancient techniques in the present-day traditional and folk forms in India and South Asia; and (c) the relevance and possibility of using these techniques today. ... Read more

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"With great originality and scholarship, Amelia Jones maps out an extraordinary history of body art over the last three decades and embeds it in the theoretical terrain of postmoderism. The result is a wonderful and permissive space in which the viewer...can wander"...-Moira Roth, Trefethen professor of art history, Mills College. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Ecstatic immanence
The most original, provocative, insightful insurrectionary and mind-bending exploration of art is found in the ecstatic title "Body Art/Performing the Subject". Here Amelia Jones ranges the bedding of postmodern art quick to excavate the surplus that lies buried when looked from the vantage of the common public. The critic is far too sensibile and intuitive to ever come across as condescending, and her intellectual milieu, however teeming with extraordinary subtlety, never subverts the innocent eye which comes to these artistic endeavors. This is one of the best book in any area of the artistic domain: critical, performative, engaging, engendered. Theoretically Amelia Jones argues in keeping with a dialectic of intersubjective claims informed by a witnessing rather than the Hegelian moment of recognition; Consequently the author steadily demonstartes how art is an event, a moment of suspension and reevaluation, that invites an insurrectionary violence toward the preconceived and assimilated notions of a rational web we lie dormant within. Psychoanalytic rhetoric is intermittantly strewn about the essays (a minimum of Lacan is required here), but only when pertinent to exposing the internal dynamics of an artist's work.

The vigor of the essays is enthusiastic, full of joy, teeming with emotional investment. This is a careful perceptive critique that stands free of the inevitable political underpinnings contemporary art deploys, yet it never embraces the overt liberal, if anarchic tendencies of the work she discusses.
Speaking of Performance Art can be a terrifying experience, for we have a fading record and still shots of a narrative experience that is frozen in its vanishing: It is much like taking a snapshot of a dream, or an acid trip, describing wjat took place and the life it gave birth to through its fading. Amelia Jones is outstanding in her capacity to do so.

There is no better exploration in art criticism today on Jackson Pollack, Ashton Harris, Laura Augilar, Hannah Wilke and Vito Acconci. Anyone fascinated by the abject nature of such artistic endeavors will find in these essays, especially those on Vito Acconci and Hannah Wilke, a compelling, forward, well-written, easily understood and intellectually astute critic that ushers and guides to an enlightening understanding.
This is the best art critic writing to day since Rosalind Krauss, Lucy Lippard, Donald Kuspit and TJ Clark, Arthur Danto and Barbara Stafford.
Not to be missed given its intelligence, eloquence, clarity and an invigorating aesthetic ductility rarely encountered today.

Amelia Jones is an American art historian, art critic and curator specializing in feminist art, body/ performance art, video art and Dadaism. Her written works and approach to modern and contemporary art history are considered revolutionary in that she breaks down commonly assumed opinions and offers brilliantly conceived critiques of the art historical tradition and individual artist's positions in that often elitist sphere.

Amelia Jones studied art history at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania. She received her Phd from UCLA in 1991.
Jones has taught art history at UC Riverside and is currently the Pilkington Chair of the art history department at Manchester University.
Jones received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2000.

Other publications of note include:

* Postmodernism and the En-Gendering of Marcel Duchamp. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
* Sexual Politics: Judy Chicago's 'Dinner Party' in Feminist Art History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.
* Body Art/ Performing the Subject. Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 1998.
* Warr, Tracey and Amelia Jones. The Artist's Body. London: Phaidon, 2000.
* The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader. New York: Routledge, 2003.
* Irrational Modernism: A Neurasthenic History of New York Dada. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2004.

excellent book
excellent book, well written; the author is a brilliant and well respected art historian

an artist responds
The body we inhabit is a contested space, one which artists have beenspeaking of and from for a long time. My own hyper recognition of theproblematics of speaking from the body came in the early 70's whenconfronted by the naked body of Vito Acconci in a hallway at the artschool I was attending. I did not know who he was, only that he was infront of me pulling hairs from his chest... This confrontation wasanything but academic. I was freaked and equally intrigued. Far fromrunning away from or theorizing on what was happening, I entered intoa space of what Roland Barthes calls "twice fascinated", onebody in visceral relationship feeling attraction, repulsion, slips ofidentification etc., another body in simultaneous psychologicalassessment and witnessing of the event. Both bodies were mine...notsplit, rather simultaneous. As I look back at my own production of thepast 30 years I see myself consistently in struggle to express thissimultaneity. The pitfalls have not only been the Cartesianimperatives imbedded within culture, but my own, historically seatedwithin my body.Reading Amelia Jones' book reminds me of the stressesand tensions which are inevitable when re-aligning our ideationalcritiques to mirror our corporeal experiences. It is not an easyposition given that definitions of body, self, other are not fixed. Ihighly recommend this book to all who are committed to reshaping ourtired dualism of nature/culture while aware of our inherentcollusions. It is refreshing to read a writing which is not afraid toslip as it intends to slide.

Very Problematic
The main problem with this book is the confusion attending Jones' inadequate construction/theorization of her basic concepts, such as,"the self" "the other" "the subject""sexuality," "narcissism." Among many glaring problemsis the total absence of any engagement or theorization of the unconscious,any true dialogue or understanding of psychoanalysis, particularlyLacanian, even though she depends so heavily on concepts derived frompsychoanalysis. What is the subject? Is it the ego? The ego + body? The"social self?" The "subject" has in fact a very precisemeaning in Lacanian theory--the subject of the signifier, which also, isutterly absent from this book. There is no conception of thesignifier--because she tends to lump anything to do with "form"into the straw man of "Greenbergian Mondernist formalism." Theresult is that Jones is often trapped in a binary--there is no third term,no theory of desire and no Other--except that which was theorized at onetime by Merleau-Ponty, evidently, though, it is nowhere in THIS text. Thereis a valiant attempt to get out of the spheric binary, but there is nothingthere to help construct it, besides the incessant footnoting andreferencing of "French philosophy" and "Frenchpoststructuralist theory," which is just a way of deferring the process,not entering into it. The "radical" structure she talks about so much isjust not part of the production of her text, her process, her methodology.She remains totally at the level of the University Professor talking aboutpeople who somewhere else have broken down the borders she seems to want tocross, butdoesn't seem to know how herself.

What is sexuality? How canyou speak about sexuality without a concept of the unconscious? In afootnote, Jones disregards Lacan's formulas of sexual difference--allegedlybecause of his "misogyny," though one could also argue that anytrue "engagement" and understanding of Lacanian theory would beboth too disruptive and too complex and problematic for her book, for themodels she wants to work with. But her superficial and clumsy reading ofLacan is the same as every other "philosopher" she quotes.

My quesion is:is "Lacan" and "psychoanalysis," perhaps even "thephallus", the truly repressed and excluded middle of Jones's own formof postmodernism? As Modernism represses the potential for its owndisruption and dispersal--where is it in Jones work? I think its in thehighly UNtheorized relation to analysis and anaytic concepts. Perhaps shedoes not wish to deal with the "phallus" precisely because she is soidentified with it?

The simultaneous "visible and invisible" quality ofher problematic relation to psychoanalytic concepts (particularly, but notonly those of Lacan), is epitomized right at the beginning by her choice ofSchneeman pulling a scroll out of her vagina. It doesn't take a genius (orMerleau-Ponty, or any "French poststructuralist philosopher") to understandshe's constructing not a penis, but a phallus, veiled in the form of a text(a book on Body Art?)(or vice versa? What is the relationship between thephallus, writing, and a hole?). The iconic power of this image speaks tothe "subject position" of Jones herself, I believe, and it is preciselythis position which goes unacknowledged and unrecognized in all herconscious representations of herself.Not that there's necessarilyanything wrong with that, given the ironic (or is it?) work of Schneeman.Whatever the case, Jones misses an opportunity to TRULY implicate herselfin her writing.

This is just a very tedious and tiresome book-typical foracademe, and typical that Jones herself is utterly blind to HER positioningin the University, of which she is so obviously a product.

Thinking bodies
BODY ART/PERFORMING THE SUBJECT offers an excellent critique of a fascinating phenomenon in contemporary art: the artist's voluntary use of her/his body in art. In this superb and much-needed book, Amelia Jonesdefines body art "as a set of performative practices that, throughsuch intersubjective engagement, instantiate the dislocation or decenteringof the Cartesian subject of modernism." Anti-formalistintersubjectivity and poststructuralist criticism against the Cartesianmind/body split are the two theoretical angles from which Jones examinesbody art pieces from the 1960s to the 1990s. She argues that body artperformances, enacted against the grain of normative subject, exposes thelogic of exclusion assumed by the modernist art history andcriticism.

With this rigorous, incisive, and politically informed thesis,Jones develops a stunning series of analytical re-readings: from the actionpainting of Jackson Pollock--filmed by Hans Namuth; theerotic/violent/contemplative body sculpture of Vito Acconci; the feministperformances of Hannah Wilke, who marks sexuality, vitality, and mortalitywith equal measure of intelligence, humor, and courage; to the intersectionof body and technology as exemplified by the works of Gary Hill, JamesLuna, Orlan, Bob Flanagan/Sheree Rose, Maureen Connor, Laurie Anderson,Lyle Ashton Harris, and Laura Aguilar. Other artists covered extensively inBody Art include Chris Burden, Yves Klein, Carolee Schneemann, YayoiKusama, Lynda Benglis, Marina Abramovic and Ulay, Adrian Piper, and Niki deSaint Phalle. The depth and breadth of Jones's theoretical references thatparticularize her portraits of these artists makes for the reading of thisbook a difficult but stimulating pleasure.

Provocatively argued andelegantly expressed, Body Art/Performing the Subject is a must-read forthose interested in the debates over embodiment, subjectivity, performance,feminism, and theories of identity. The intensity of Jones's writing is theheat--and the cool--of a philosophical motion. ... Read more

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The Dictionary of the Performing Arts combines all performing arts disciplines into one volume.Amazon.com Review
Music, dance, acting, film, television, and other creativeendeavors--each develops its own jargon to communicate within thefield. There's plenty of overlap in this terminology, and this oftencreates a confusing mess when artists try to work together. TheDictionary of the Performing Arts aims to help professionals,students, and critics understand each other by providingcomprehensive, cross-discipline definitions of thousands ofperformance-related terms. Each word is followed by short ormedium-length explanations of its meaning as used by differentperformers and technicians. "Fade," for example, has related butdifferent meanings to people working in audio, lighting, and motionpictures, while a "stage manager" is the same to any variety of liveperformance. Including terms from circus, vaudeville, opera, classicalGreek and Asian theater, the Dictionary covers vast tracts ofartistic territory--not many reference works contain extensivedefinitions of both pas de deux and heavy metal (thoughthe latter curiously refers to Jimi Hendrix as one of its "greatestexponents"). Whether you're a scholar or a showboat, the Dictionaryof the Performing Arts will come in handy when you need to makesense of the language of creation. --Rob Lightner ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

A very helpful tool in the theatrical field of study.
What's a word it does not have in it? This is a wonderful book to have around if you love the arts or are like me, and trying out for an acting academy.

marvelous
this is a marvelous dictionary.it is truly comprehensive covering everything "performing".I recommend it for anyone with an interest in the performing arts from professionals to buffs.even for those who want to "fake" it.here's where to get your terms right!

Excellent, useful, particularly the complex definitions.
The best thing about this dictionary, for me, is the treatment of the basic terms of drama that came originally from Aristotle and, here at least, are applied to the basic principles of modern theater in a lucid andmeaningful manner.

a great read
wonderful reading. frank, pick up miss plastini,2 midlnd gardens going to la gurdia.check,check.

a great read
wonderful reading. frank, pick up miss plastini,2 midlnd gardens going to la gurdia.check,check. ... Read more

Product Description
The authors discuss institutional life and the challenges it presents to the performer, with clarity and sensitivity and provide firsthand practical advice on programme planning, presentation and communication skills. Above all, the book sends a clear message to all musicians — the sheer fun to be experienced in performing for your community is definitely not to be missed.
The authors invite all performing musicians to look beyond the concert halls to the various kinds of institutions, such as schools, hospitals, prisons, day centers and elderly persons' homes, where audiences exist, waiting to show their appreciation to musicians who will take the trouble to seek them out.
Isabel Farrell and Kenton Mann are both Directors of the Music Unlimited training centre at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. ... Read more

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A behind-the-scenes story with more than a touch of theatrical magic about it, A Year with The Producers is a book for actors and theater fans everywhere. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Well written, backstage look at musical theater
This book is an interesting little backstage look at Broadway musical theater by one of the faceless, hard working, (struggling to be) up and coming, supporting performers. Twice in the beginning of this book, written in 2001, he notes how impressed he was with the show 'Crazy for You', and in 2007, when I first saw him perform, it was as the lead in (you guessed it) 'Crazy for You'.

Denman is aversatile guy, onstage as singer, dancer, actor, and offstage as choreographer, playwright, tap dance teacher, and (based on this book) quite a good writer. From the credits shown on his web site and based on what I saw at North Shore Music Theater (near Boston) Denman has made good progress in the years since writing this book toward his stated goal of moving up to principal performer.

Video of Denman (paired with Amanda Watkins) in the North Shore Music Theater production of Crazy for You is available on YouTube (search phrase "Jeffry Denman".

[...]

"Springtime for Disappointment"
I have several friends who were in the original cast of "The Producers". When visiting them back in 2002, one of my friends told me about Jeffry's book he was writing. Being one of the biggest Mel Brooks fans on the planet, I was really quite anxious to read it. About 25 pages into it, I realized that it should have been titled "A Year With 'The Producers' featuring MYSELF". I thought the book would have been much more interesting if it had been less about an unknown actor/writer, and how many names he could drop ,and more about people we've actually heard of.
The thing I found most disappointing was that more than a couple of times, Denman starts to tell us something interesting that someone said but then uses phrases like "but I'll keep that to myself", or "but I won't print that here". Then WHY write a book like this if you're not going to tell us the good stuff. That's the stuff we want to hear!
My other let down was that the final entry of the book was on September 10, 2001. I think the book could have benifited if Dehnman had written about how the show was effected by the events of 9/11. Seemed like a no brainer to me. I wonder why he chose to stop there?
In short, don't waste your time with this one. Buy the coffee table book that actually does have funny stories about Mel and the other interesting characters that somehow Jeffry didn't notice were around for that year.

All about him, not the show
This book is a great example of why editors are so important.It seems this author didn't have one. The journal should have been the starting point of a book, not the end product. Instead of giving us the excruciating details interesting to no one but Mom and Dad(he started singing "Waiting for the Girls Upstairs" when his girlfriend was running late, whoopee), I expected some real insights into how Broadway-level theatre is created.OK, we get that it runs at a breakneck pace and that all the chorus kids think they could get the dance steps faster and better than the real stars.We get that this author hates it when stars get star treatment and the chorus is left out in the cold.(He did seem to enjoy the star dressing room when he got it for a couple of days, though, didn't he?)I can't believe we got so few stories about Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick, Mel Brooks... I mean, come on, Jeffrey, your long-winded description of your last performance of Cats is not what someone buying "a year with the Producers" wants to know about.Bottom line: this book is like your co-worker's vacation pictures from Niagara Falls.A complete bore.

a fun look at life backstage
this is a great book for anyone interested in any aspect of the theatre.It is an intimate look at the process, how actors live and work.

A Fantastic Read
If Jeffrey Denmans Broadway career goes into a tailspin (which I highly doubt) he could definetely get a job as an author. This book to say the least is impossible to put down. I read it in one sitting. Not only is it a brilliant look into the minds of Denman, Mel Brooks, Susan Stroman, and others, but it is a indispensable look at professional theatre and the toils and work that go into 3 hours of an amazing theatrical experience. ... Read more

Product Description
This classic study provides an extensive analysis of the major economic attributes of the performing arts: audience composition, costs, income, organizational structure and remuneration of performers. The authors cleady demonstrate why the cost per performance and per attendance has always risen faster than the economy's rate of inflation, and indicate this situation is unlikely to change in the future. The book concludes with a summary discussion of general policy implications. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

35 Years out:Still the best in the field
Baumol and Bowen made this 1966 book (now in reprint) the first and still most thorough treatment of theeconomics of cultural nonprofits in the US.I have sought data on the field, and all current analysis points back to Baumol:both their analysis of the impact of rising prices on nonprofitsand the original research that they so carefully document. ... Read more

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What is virtuosity? Is it an innate gift or can it be taught? How does it manifest in music, dance, or drama, and by what criteria? What does it take to become a virtuoso/a; what are the odds of success? And ultimately, at what price? Examining the concept of virtuosity in multiple perspectives, this book helps to answer those questions and many more. V. A. Howard traces virtuosity from its historical roots to philosophical and psychological learning theory to the rigours of professional training and shows how high level performers are made, marketed, and sold by those who broker talent as a commodity.

Critics and theorists will find this book comprehensive and illuminating. And for that vast group of budding aspirants (and their mentors) who desire to "make it," to figure out where they are going, how far and why, the insights contained herein are key to survival. No dance or drama studio, regional theatre, music school, or conservatory can afford to ignore this hard look at the realities of classical performance art and training. For those whose vocation is performance, this is required reading. ... Read more

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This reference volume provides basic biographical facts, citations of obituaries and death notices in selected Anglo-American newspapers, and references to book-length biographies and autobiographies in English of theatrical artists who died between 1850 and 1990. Through thousands of entries and cross references, Stage Deaths details the lives and careers of actors, directors, musical directors, designers, producers, playwrights, composers, screenwriters, scenarists, theatre and company managers, and agents connected with stage, screen, radio, television, vaudeville, circus, menagerie, and carnival. A complete entry contains stage name(s), sobriquet, real name, parents; names, spouse(s)'s name(s), date and place of birth and death, citations of obituaries, and a list of autobiographies and biographies in English. ... Read more

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Anyone involved in education will gain valuable guidance form this idea-filled exploration of how schools and performing arts organizations can work together in mutually beneficial programs.



While funding for the arts declines, there is also an awakening regard for the need for arts in the education of well-rounded human beings. By presenting specific programs for artists’s visits to schools and school trips to performing arts institutions, this timely guide shows how to interface within tight budgets and informs emerging standards of the federal Goals 2000 program. ... Read more