Theatres of the Body
eBook - PDF

Theatres of the Body

Dance and Discourse in Antebellum Philadelphia

  1. 306 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Theatres of the Body

Dance and Discourse in Antebellum Philadelphia

About this book

Theatres of the Body is Lynn Matluck Brooks' critical examination of danced stage productions in antebellum Philadelphia. Starting in the 1820s, Brooks explores visual art and social and theatrical dancing across different classes, focusing on the work of E. W. Clay. Continuing through the 1830s, she looks at pantomime ballets and blackface minstrelsy through a political lens, asking questions regarding citizenship, slavery, and freedom. At the time, the city boasted the largest number of native-born ballet dancers in the young nation. Philadelphia also became a creative home to blackface star T. D. Rice, who helped popularize that performance genre.

Reviewing print culture in the 1840s, Brooks shows how newspapers, magazines, and popular fiction provided documentation of dancing in Philadelphia as well as the responses of dance commentators, practitioners, and moralists. Theatres of the Body also considers the interplay of science with dance in the 1850s, which impacted both dance practices and reception.

Providing an expansive historiography of these significant contributions to dance in the United States, Brooks deepens our understanding of antebellum culture and history.

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Yes, you can access Theatres of the Body by Lynn Matluck Brooks in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Media & Performing Arts & North American History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Contents
  2. Acknowledgments
  3. 1. Introduction: Dancing, Bodies, and Philadelphia History
  4. 2. Tumultuous Pleasures: Graphic Lessons in Dancing from the 1820s
  5. 3. The 1830s: Politics Performed
  6. 4. Dancing “Philadelphia in Slices”: The 1840s
  7. 5. Order and Entropy: Science, Stage, and Society, 1850–1860
  8. 6. Conclusions: Dance as Discourse in Antebellum Philadelphia
  9. Notes
  10. Bibliography
  11. Index