Word: commedia
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...unique because it was not choreographed to a specific song and could be danced unrehearsed with any partner. Following the performance, art historian Meredith Chilton elaborated on these 18th-century entertainments, focusing especially on the character of the harlequin. One of the most popular stock characters featured in the Commedia dell’arte, an improvisational theater group, the harlequin was a comic servant character. Often dressed in bright, eye-catching costumes, the harlequin was a favorite subject of 18th-century porcelain sculptors. Though less than a handful of actual harlequin costumes survive today, those on display seem empty compared...
...power to turn people into swans remains to be seen, but Spillane-Hinks has worked her magic here in the mythological world of Harvard—largely through the theater scene. Using the experience she gained while spending two summers in France learning the Italian performance tradition of Commedia dell’arte (think red-faced pantomime with long, long noses), she created this year’s production of “Slavs!”. “The first time I experienced theater, I remember I was three years old,” Spillane-Hinks says...
...incriminating vein. “While one viewer might watch WWE and see nothing more than a bunch of steroid-addled actors with gender issues, another person could witness the spectacle and see a modern-day burlesque. There’s melodrama, slapstick humor, sexual ambiguity…frankly, Commedia dell’Arte incorporates most of the same elements...
...Masquerade Ball” appears to be a modernized take on 19th-century Italian commedia dell’arte, and “The Tiger” is a retelling of an ancient Chinese tale, complete with intricate martial arts choreography. The specifics of each piece reflect the wide range of disciplines in which all members of the company has trained: pantomime, Decroux’s exacting “grammar for the body,” Marceau’s own modern mime technique, dance, acrobatics, fencing and martial arts...
...this was only one of the many interludes making up “Life: A Guide for the (Politically) Perplexed (Convention Edition),” a meta-vaudeville-cum-commedia-dell’arte revue now completing the last of two weeks...