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. Zillmann, D. (2000): The coming of media entertainment. In D. Zillmann and P. Vorderer (eds): Media Entertainment. The Psychology of its Appeal. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1-20. Media Entertainment. The
Abstract
Ethnographic shows existed as peculiar projects in a specific time and space. Correspondingly, entertainment played a specific role in the life of modernizing cities. This article aims at reconstructing the circumstances and places of entertainment in Gdańsk, where representatives of ‘exotic’ peoples from distant continents performed on stage. The stage was not only that of ethnic shows (Völkerschauen), where the program of the performance was entirely devoted to one group, but also circuses, where ‘exotic others’ performed alongside other artists, as well as theaters with a light repertoire of variétés that were operating in Gdańsk at the time. The specificity of shows performed by people from distant lands seemed to reside in emphasizing differences: cultural, ethnic and civilizational. Questions emerge concerning what these shows were like, how ‘wildness’ was perceived and how ‘exotic’ daily life was presented? The presented materials have been gathered from the accounts and press advertisements of the Gdańsk press at the time. If meaning in shows was embodied in form, technique, and place, the question at hand, is what precisely we can ascertain about entertainment institutions in urban landscape from this kind of data.
The present paper deals with the issue of defining functional tools able to help modern historians understand the genesis and evolution of historiography in 14th-century Anatolia. It emphasises the indistinct lines between hagiographies and sagas and between leader-centred and popular texts, while making a strong case for the key role played by the necessity of creating entertainment. Having become bestsellers exponentially raised the chances of these creations to survive across centuries. Most of the texts we use today as historical sources were designed to entertain their consumers. Moralising or ideologically manipulating them came only in the second or third place.
Abstract
The article presents outcomes of the transformation of ethnographic shows into circus acts at the example of Sarrasani Circus performances in Opole (German: Oppeln) in the beginning of the 20th century. The author examines how circus performances created experience of the extraordinary on stage by presenting faraway, distant, exotic cultures. Thus ethnographic shows in the Sarrasani Circus were an element of magic world of wonders performed at arena. The circus visited Opole thrice: in 1913, 1928 and 1933 becoming one of the main attractions in the city. Each time the shows were preceded by a huge advertising campaign in the local German- and Polish-language press. Press articles, notes and advertisements along with scarce archival data constitute the main source for the analysis, though they offer a very specific image of the past. Taking this into account, the author focuses on the manner of conceptualizing exotic cultures to make them attractive to the city audience. Such an approach enables research on the process of presenting exotic ethnic groups within a framework of city entertainment in the first decades of the 20th century. Therefore what the author describes is a way in which distant cultures become a stage attraction, a circus trick and an element co-creating a fantastic reality on arena.
Abstract
Variety and revue shows played a significant role in popular culture during the first half of the 20th century. Serving as a typical genre of cosmopolitan urban entertainment, these productions consisted of international acts, where a ‘foreign’ act was mostly defined by music, visual appearances and performance style; thus, not exclusively by the actual origin of the performer. This paper aims to analyze the presence and influence of Hungarian (style) acts in Berlin in three different socio-political contexts: the Weimar Republic, the NS-Zeit, and the Nachkriegszeit until the Berlin Wall was erected. Three large venues, the Plaza, the Scala and the Wintergarten (ca. 3000 seats each) defined the urban live entertainment sphere from 1920 onwards. These venues held shows until 1944. After the Second World War, only one large hall was opened in the destroyed city, the Friedrichstadt-Palast (in the Soviet occupation zone), which became a representative venue for East-Berlin as well as the GDR. The fact that Hungarian (style) acts were present in Berlin shows without a break during the entire research period shows that it did not depend on governmental cultural policies. The Hungarian show constituted a complex phenomenon which generated interest in the audience, guaranteeing their regular appearance. This analysis is based on primary sources; namely, a photography and programs collection housed at the Stadtmuseum Berlin. Moreover, Hungarian and German professional journals were utilized in this research.
“An outright abundance of amusements. Twenty out of thirty posters announce and praise the spectacles so far unparalleled. In Passage-Panoptikum, the Dahomeys laid out. I proceeded onwards to catch sight of some more people. (…)
A huge, gilded hall flooded with rays of the sun, crowded and buzzing. Music plays a sentimental waltz. The masses smoke, and speak. White aprons of waiters cross the hall in diverse directions, and one may hear knocks of pitchers and a hoarse voice:
– Beer!
The hall is full of Dahomey. They squeeze between the tables with the dexterity of monkeys and wheedle money. They are almost naked and beautifully built. The black-and-ashen hue of their skin is velvety, glittering and invariably soft. A certain Dahomey Venus simpers and intrusively strives for selling a photograph of her. (…) two enchanters or bonzes wearing white coats came out to the forefront of the stage. One of them holds a monstrous deity, coarsely hewn of wood; and the second – a flat, cane basket and a long pipe made of reed.
– Serpents! A serpent! Die Schlange! – the crowd yells and a strange kind of shiver pierced through everyone. (…)
The snakes stood almost vertically and started to perform a kind of dance along slanting lines. Their long and greenish bodies writhed, bounced and fell on the ground hissing. There is commotion in the hall, but after a while the crowd erupts in applause, and this European, metropolitan mob is immersed in delight. (…)
Gentlemen! Buy photographs showing the King of Dahomey. Only one mark a piece…” (Reymont 1894).
Abstract
At the turn of the 20th century many Native Americans took part in white man's enterprises: first Wild West shows, then silent movies. Wild West shows toured not only the United States but the Old World as well, including the south-eastern edges of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Among the Native Americans who performed in Europe particularly visible were the Lakota (western Sioux) who performed, among others, in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show. The most famous of these Lakotas was Sitting Bull who had led his people's military resistance against encroaching white Americans a decade beforehand. Sitting Bull joined the Buffalo Bill's show for 1885 season. In 1890, the Sioux and other tribes lived a great religious awakening that was named Ghost Dance, hoping that by performing the Ghost Dance ritual they would make their lives better and get rid of the white men who took their lands, put them in reservations, broke treaty promises and brought hunger and diseases. On December 15, 1890, Sitting Bull was killed by Indian Police in front of his cabin at the Standing Rock reservation. Two weeks later, on December 29, 1890, at least two hundred, but perhaps as many as three hundred, Lakotas were killed in the tragic battle (that soon turned into a massacre) at Wounded Knee or died in its aftermath.
A few months later, almost one hundred Lakotas, including those who survived Wounded Knee massacre, joined the Buffalo Bill show during its second European tour. In 1902 they participated in the third European tour of Buffalo Bill's Wild West, now called Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World. I will discuss the show as well as the Native American performers and their reception while the show travelled among Polish cities during the summer of 1906, almost at the end of that tour. Delving into Polish press of that period, I will attempt to demonstrate how the Polish press made various, sometimes quite unexpected uses of the show.
Abstract
The Serenata con una Cantatina by Ignaz von Seyfried is a particular work for choir, soloists and Harmoniemusik, which was performed in 1805 for a courtly occasion. The music is above all entertaining, but certain objectives, probably imposed by Empress Maria Theresia, are in the background. The objective is to understand how Seyfried combines a festive but cultivated music with social and political purposes. The origins of the score and the creation process are first considered. The issues at stake are exemplified by an analysis of the different movements, particularly the Quolibet. This study aims to reveal the composer's engagement, the performance practice as well as the reception of this work a time when the Harmoniemusik was very successful in Vienna.
The choice of the theme is interdisciplinary, drawing on the findings not only of ethnography and anthropology but also of sociology and musicology and offering new results for these disciplines. The researcher strives for a multidisciplinary approach and methodological diversity, focusing on questions which have not yet been studied or only to a very limited extent. The theme examined: how youth create their own culture and the micro world of their own group cultures based on music. She examines the values that prevail and the extent to which groups are distinct from each other and the previous generation. Both members of the age group and specialists dealing with youth (DJ, youth organiser) are interviewed. In contrast with the notion of “subculture” widely used in the social sciences, the author examines youth culture as group cultures equal in value, existing side by side and in the same time frame. The age group surveyed comprised 500 third- and fourth-year secondary school students. Research methods: interviews, representative questionnaires; on-the-spot observations. Group cultures analysed: rocker, alternative, punk, skinhead, rapper, disco, raver, house. Structure: short outline of music and social history, presentation of the groups concerned, typological comparisons.
when using smartphones (i.e., learning, entertainment, and communication activities) in such associations. By going beyond the monolithic conceptualization of both smartphone use motivation and time, we seek to obtain increased specificity in our
