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not-for-profit · a worker's co-operative · committed to social change
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not-for-profit · a worker's co-operative · committed to social change
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This book appears in the following booklistsin categories:Music & Performing Arts, Humour, Gifts & Seasonal, Order this book online - this link leads to our secure order website which will indicate how long the book will take to order. (Availability of '24-48 hours' means our wholesaler has stock - we place orders 2-3 times a week & receive the books next day.) (Availability of '7-10 days' or 'Special Order' means we order direct from the publisher - order times vary, many supply within 10 days.) Phone us: 0151 708 7270 | Performing Dark Arts: a Cultural History of Conjuringby
Michael Mangan
"This is an erudite book which wears its scholarship lightly and is a pleasure to read. Complex theoretical frameworks are introduced in ways that will make them accessible to the general reader, and the book's argument opens up new implications and applications for the study of magic as performance…" "'Writing from the framework of the emerging field of Performance Studies, Michael Mangan investigates the ways in which different periods in Western history have defined the conjurer. Performing Dark Arts: A Cultural History of Conjuring looks at how the development of the modern stage magician occurred in the context of religious perceptions of miracles, priestly power, notions of the occult, the emergence of modern science and technology, and the contemporary movements of spirituality and performance art." ISBN 13: 9781841501499 | ISBN 10: 1841501492 | Please note: Neither this website nor our order website can tell you if a book is actually in the shop right now - please contact us to find out. Prices - we do our best to keep price information up to date, but publishers very occasionally change book prices, so we cannot completely guarantee the prices shown here. We're always happy to check price & availability for you before you place your order, just ask! |
Magic and conjuring inhabit the boundaries and the borderlands of performance. The conjuror's act of demonstrating the apparently impossible, the uncanny, the marvellous, or the grotesque challenges the spectator's sense of reality. It brings him or her up against their own assumptions about how the world works; at its most extreme, it asks the spectator to re-evaluate his or her sense of the limits of the human. Performing Dark Arts is an exploration of the paradox of the conjuror, the actor who pretends to be a magician. It aims to illuminate the history of conjuring by examining it in the context of performance studies, and to throw light on aspects of performance studies by testing them against the art of conjuring. The book examines not only the performances of individual magicians from Dedi to David Blaine, but also the broader cultural contexts in which their performances were received, and the meanings which they have attracted.