Marie Sallé, Handel, Rameau and the development of narrative dance music:Bericht vom Internationalen Symposium an der Hochschule fur Musik und Theater Leipzig

Paradigmatic analysis reveals that these two composers developed distinct responses to creating narrative in dance music

'A Romanian Perspective on Brian Friel's Translations'

Based on the premise that the history of the representation in drama of the Ulster "Troubles" has been characterised by a move from direct to metaphorical engagement, this paper seeks to explore the signficance of Brian Friel's Translations as a "Troubles Drama" with reference to a production of the play I directed for the Hungarian Theater of Cluj in the Fall of 2001. Interpreting a play about language in a language other than the one in which it was originally written proved to have many implications for the rehearsal process and led me to experiment with the image theatre techniques of Augusto Boal. The nature of Cluj/Kolozsvar as a bi-lingual city added to the complexities of the process, as did my own status as an English-speaking director in a Hungarian-speaking environment. The extraordinary neautre of the wider geopolitical context at the time of the production proved to be the final ingredient in what became an exceptional empirical process of discovery. The discussion of the particular production is placed in the wider context of an exposition of a theory of "cultural gravity" as an alternative to "liminality" in helping to assess the cultural signficance of geopolitical boundaries.

The Soviet Union and the International Brigades, 1936-1939

The International Brigades are typically viewed as a fighting force whose impetus came from the Comintern, and thus from within the walls of the Kremlin. If the assumption is essentially correct, the broader relation between Stalin’s USSR and the IB has received little attention. This chapter constitutes an empirically-based study of the Soviet role not only in the formation of the IB, but of the Red Army’s collaboration with IB units, and Moscow’s role in the climax and denouement of the brigadistas’ Spanish experience. This study’s principal conclusion is twofold: First, that the creation and sustenance of the IB was part of Stalin’s goal of linking the Loyalist cause with that of the Soviet Union and international communism, a component of a larger geo-strategic gamble which sought to create united opposition to the fascist menace, one which might eventually bring Moscow and the West into a closer alliance. The second conclusion is that the IB, like the broader projection of Soviet power and influence into the Spanish theater, was an overly ambitious operational failure whose abortive retreat is indicative of the basic weakness of the Stalinist regime in the years prior to the Second World War.

Balancing deceit and disguise: How to successfully fool the defender in a 1 vs. 1 situation in rugby

Suddenly changing direction requires a whole body reorientation strategy. In sporting duels such as an attacker vs. a defender in rugby, successful body orientation/reorientation strategies are essential for successful performance. The aim of this study is to examine which biomechanical factors, while taking into account biomechanical constraints, are used by an attacker in a 1 vs. 1 duel in rugby. More specifically we wanted to examine how an attacker tries to deceive the defender yet disguise his intentions by comparing effective deceptive movements (DM+), ineffective deceptive movements (DM-), and non-deceptive movements (NDM). Eight French amateur expert rugby union players were asked to perform DMs and NDMs in a real 1 vs. 1 duel. For each type of movement (DM+, DM-, NDM) different relevant orientation/reorientation parameters, medio-lateral displacement of the center of mass (COM), foot, head, upper trunk, and lower trunk yaw; and upper trunk roll were analyzed and compared. Results showed that COM displacement and lower trunk yaw were minimized during DMs while foot displacement along with head and upper trunk yaw were exaggerated during DMs (DM+ and DM-). This would suggest that the player is using exaggerated body-related information to consciously deceive the defender into thinking he will run in a given direction while minimizing other postural control parameters to disguise a sudden change in posture necessary to modify final running direction. Further analysis of the efficacy of deceptive movements showed how the disguise and deceit strategies needed to be carefully balanced to successfully fool the defender. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A experiência barroca e a identidade local na Semana Santa de Campanha, Minas Gerais

Este trabalho analisa a formação de uma sensibilidade barroca em Minas Gerais a partir da orientação participativa e altamente emotiva das festas coloniais, cujo legado se mantem presente nas festas religiosas de muitas antigas cidades mineradoras do estado. Enfocando as celebrações da Semana Santa na cidade sul-mineira de Campanha, o texto mostra como este evento anual era organizado pela Irmandade do Santíssimo Sacramento, passando então às mãos de uma comissão local após a extinção da irmandade. Se até meados do século XIX, havia músicos semi-profissionais contratados para tocar e cantar nas celebrações, a música foi assumida progressivamente por grupos de amadores. Assim, a festa passou a ser entendida como uma produção local e a cada ano a população renova o seu orgulho campanhense, ao contemplar sua capacidade de produzir um evento tão ‘maravilhoso’.

This paper analyses the formation of a baroque sensibility in the State of Minas Gerais (Brazil) that derives from the participatory and highly emotive orientation of the colonial festivals, the legacy of which is still present in many former mining towns in the region. By focusing upon the Holy Week celebrations in Campanha, a small town in southern Minas Gerais, the text shows how this annual event was organized by the Confraternity of the Holy Sacrament, but was then transferred to a local committee after the confraternity was made extinct. If up to the mid 19th century there were semi-professional musicians to perform for the celebrations, responsibility for the music was slowly taken over by amateur groups. In this way the festival came to be understood as a local affair, and each year the population renews its pride in itself for its capacity to stage such a ‘marvelous’ event.

Screens, Closets, and Echo-Chambers of the Mind: The Struggle to Represent the Inner Life on Stage

Screens, Closets, and Echo-Chambers of the Mind: The Struggle to Represent the Inner Life on Stage

SN 2005cs in M51-II. Complete evolution in the optical and the near-infrared

We present the results of the one-year long observational campaign of the type 11 plateau SN 2005cs, which exploded in the nearby spiral galaxy M51 (the Whirlpool galaxy). This extensive data set makes SN 2005cs the best observed low-luminosity, Ni-56-poor type II plateau event so far and one of the best core-collapse supernovae ever. The optical and near-infrared spectra show narrow P-Cygni lines characteristic of this SN family, which are indicative of a very low expansion velocity (about 1000 km s(-1)) of the ejected material. The optical light curves cover both the plateau phase and the late-time radioactive tail, until about 380 d after core-collapse. Numerous unfiltered observations obtained by amateur astronomers give us the rare opportunity to monitor the fast rise to maximum light, lasting about 2 cl. In addition to optical observations, we also present near-infrared light curves that (together with already published ultraviolet observations) allow us to construct for the first time a reliable bolometric light Curve for an object of this class. Finally. comparing the observed data withthose derived front it semi-analytic model, we infer for SN 2005cs a Ni-56 mass of about 3 x 10(-3) M-circle dot a total ejected mass of 8-13 M-circle dot and an explosion energy of about 3 x 10(50) erg.

Audiovisual citation: a project update

Existing referencing systems frequently prove inadequate for the citation of moving image and sound media such as vidcasts, streaming television, sound files, un-catalogued archive footage, amateur content hosted online or
non-broadcast radio recordings. Back in 2009 and 2010 a British working group funded by Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and co-ordinated by the British Universities Film and Video Council investigated this problem. This report documents the early stages of the project.