Performance in Popular Culture

<p><em>Performance in Popular Culture</em> reveals the intricate relationship between performance and popular culture by exploring how theatrical conventions and dramaturgical tropes have informed the way the social is constructed for popular consumption.</p><p>Staged as a series of case studies, this book considers the diverse ways the social is imagined and produced in live and mediated performances, in images and texts, in interactive experiences and in cultural institutions. By looking at performance in popular culture, the world we live in becomes more visible, open to investigation and (perhaps) to change. <i>Performance in Popular Culture </i>engages a wide range of disciplines and theoretical frameworks: performance, theatre and cultural studies; comparative literature and media studies; gender and sexuality, critical race and post-colonial theories. </p><p>Designed for accessibility at an undergraduate level, the case studies make use of visual materials, moving images and texts that are readily available to lecturers and students, to scholars and to the general public. </p> <p><strong>PART I Screens and things</strong>1 The Marx Brothers: From stage to screen<br>2 Betty Boop’s animated performances<br>3 Performing the pandemic</p><p>PART II Boxed sets<br>4 Puppet plays: Boxes are made to be broken<br>5 I Love Lucy: From live performance to canned entertainment<br>6 Do you hear the people sing?</p><p>PART III Stars in our eyes<br>7 Like a diva: From Maria Callas to Madonna<br>8 Beyoncé’s <i>Homecoming </i>| ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’<br>9 Got Talent</p><p>PART IV Public arts/art’s publics<br>10 Fragments of the past, cabinets of curiosity and cultural convergences<br>11 Marina Abramovic is present<br>12 Pepper’s Ghost and the haunted, educational exhibits at Wellington Museum</p><p>PART V Sporting arenas and fields of play<br>13 The fix is in: Professional wrestling<br>14 Olympian opening ceremonies<br>15 Cheerleaders in the popular (American) imagination</p><p>PART VI Sideshows no more<br>16 Evangelical performance: From morality plays to the Power Team and Hell House<br>17 Queer shows<br>18 Feminism: One step forward, three steps back?</p><p>PART VII Culture shows<br>19 Performing Maori<br>20 Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre: Planted in London, popping up in Auckland<br>21 Making a show of royalty</p><p>PART VIII Power, politics and protest<br>22 Donald Trump and the pro-wrestling-ifi cation of politics in the USA<br>23 Race matters<br>24 Visions of the apocalypse</p>