Presented by: Dr. Jenna Soleo-Shanks, UMD Theatre Department; Thursday, November 5, 2020, 12:00 P... more Presented by: Dr. Jenna Soleo-Shanks, UMD Theatre Department; Thursday, November 5, 2020, 12:00 PM; A CLA passport event; Free and Open to the PublicEvery summer for more than 800 years, the city of Siena has staged a celebration that combines civic pride with religious devotion, in an event that looks to outsiders like a horse race. Il Palio, however, is much more than that. In fact, Siena’s famous tradition is merely a shadow of a long history in which festive and ephemeral traditions functioned to help construct, articulate, and promote the city’s distinctive identity. Soleo-Shanks’s research focuses on the ways in which medieval performance traditions shaped the Siena during its Republican era (12th-16th centuries). From the architecture of its central piazza to its relationship with holy patron, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Siena is indebted to the power of performance. In this presentation, Soleo-Shanks will discuss the ways Siena used theatrical spectacles throughout its history and the challenges of excavating evidence of such performance practices today.Royal D. Alworth, Jr. Institute for International Studie
Teaching Medieval and Early Modern Cross-Cultural Encounters, 2014
Atense silence falls over the audience as Callimachus enters the tomb and hovers over the body of... more Atense silence falls over the audience as Callimachus enters the tomb and hovers over the body of Drusiana, the object of his desire even in death. Fortunatus, his accomplice, lingers nervously nearby as Callimachus proclaims his necrophiliac intentions. Percussive tones fill the theater, subtly at first, but building. As Callimachus approaches his victim, the music intensifies, coupled with the sound of marching, and Fortunatus’s agitation increases. The audience becomes more aware of the insistent beat as Fortunatus spies something in the distance. He cries, “Watch out!” just as the dragon, multicolored and more than ten feet in length, stomps slowly but intently into view. At the same time the music becomes recognizable; it is Nina Simone’s “Sinnerman.” Callimachus dashes across the stage as Simone sings, “Oh sinnerman, where you gonna run to?” In the “chase scene” that follows, pursuer and prey crisscross the stage, eliciting gasps from the audience as Callimachus’s acrobatics force the dragon to lurch and twist after him. Finally both Callimachus and his henchman are enveloped by the dancing dragon, and die.
Natalie Crohn Schmitt. Befriending the Commedia dell'Arte of Flaminio Scala: The Comic Scenar... more Natalie Crohn Schmitt. Befriending the Commedia dell'Arte of Flaminio Scala: The Comic Scenarios. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014. Pp. xiii + 328. $80.00. For all of the unique qualities that define the commedia dell'arte, one of its most distinguishing characteristics is something it lacks. As any theater student can tell you, there are no play scripts. Yet, significantly, more than 800 extant scenarios attest to the structure, style, and vitality of the tradition that has been called the most important theatrical movement of early modern Europe. Among these documents, only fifty were published during the height of the movement's popularity, printed as a single collection in 1611 by Flaminio Scala. While the value of Scala's collection as evidence of the tradition has never been questioned, the merits of the individual scenarios have been dismissed for a variety of reasons. According to Natalie Crohn Schmitt, the foundational issue lies in a misunderstanding of Scala's role in preserving the scenarios. In Befriending the Commedia dell'Arte of Flaminio Scala: The Comic Scenarios, Schmitt sets out not only to illuminate the richness of Scala's work within the context of sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Italian culture, but also to reclaim Scala as an "inventor" of the art within the specific Renaissance context of the word. Schmitt's project offers an important new perspective on the history of commedia dell'arte, for while scholarship on the tradition is robust, there is clearly opportunity for further work focused specifically on the texts and their genesis. The Routledge Companion to Commedia dell'Arte (2014), for example, includes more than fifty essays, but only two focus on the scenarios. Schmitt's lucid and incisive argument, grounded by extensive research into sixteenth-century Italian society as well as contemporary aesthetic theory, makes a compelling case for the complex relationship between the scenarios and the culture out of which they emerged. While Befriending the Commedia dell'Arte does not exhaustively analyze Scala's oeuvre, it does open the door for future scholars, revealing areas ripe for further investigation and an appropriate methodology for approaching such inquiries. The first half of Schmitt's monograph sets up this methodology with general examples garnered from a myriad of Scala's works; the second half applies the approach in depth to four select scenarios: Day 6: The Jealous Old Man, Day 21: The Fake Sorcerer, Day 25: The Jealous Isabella, and Day 36: Isabella [the] Astrologer. In part 1, Schmitt argues for the value of Scala's work on two distinct fronts. Firstly, she refutes the prevailing notion that commedia dell'arte scenarios represent an autonomous theatrical world that existed primarily in relation to stage conventions. Instead, she establishes the precise social and political contexts through which contemporary audiences would have appreciated the form's most common settings and characters, specifically in terms of relationships. Thus, Schmitt does not merely discuss the details of particular cities, but considers themes such as civic violence or the mobility of women in terms of Renaissance urban culture, often with pointed examples linking Scala's texts to unique communities. Likewise, instead of examining the conventions of individual comic types, Schmitt considers the dynamics between social pairings, such as fathers and sons or citizens and servants. A particularly interesting investigation of Capitano, for example, highlights a section entitled "Outsiders and Society." While some of the background given may seem to rehash well-known aspects of Renaissance culture, such as the ubiquity of mercenaries in Italian cities, Schmitt's contextualization of the dynamics between Italian citizens and Spanish soldiers opens her argument up to non-specialists in useful ways. The second level on which Schmitt investigates the value of Scala and his collection is through an analysis of the notion of "invention" grounded in Renaissance aesthetic theory. …
This dissertation examines the civic function of performance in Siena, Italy, from the nascent co... more This dissertation examines the civic function of performance in Siena, Italy, from the nascent communal era in the twelfth century through the ultimate collapse of the Sienese Republic in the middle of the sixteenth century. During this era the city-states that developed ...
Presented by: Dr. Jenna Soleo-Shanks, UMD Theatre Department; Thursday, November 5, 2020, 12:00 P... more Presented by: Dr. Jenna Soleo-Shanks, UMD Theatre Department; Thursday, November 5, 2020, 12:00 PM; A CLA passport event; Free and Open to the PublicEvery summer for more than 800 years, the city of Siena has staged a celebration that combines civic pride with religious devotion, in an event that looks to outsiders like a horse race. Il Palio, however, is much more than that. In fact, Siena’s famous tradition is merely a shadow of a long history in which festive and ephemeral traditions functioned to help construct, articulate, and promote the city’s distinctive identity. Soleo-Shanks’s research focuses on the ways in which medieval performance traditions shaped the Siena during its Republican era (12th-16th centuries). From the architecture of its central piazza to its relationship with holy patron, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Siena is indebted to the power of performance. In this presentation, Soleo-Shanks will discuss the ways Siena used theatrical spectacles throughout its history and the challenges of excavating evidence of such performance practices today.Royal D. Alworth, Jr. Institute for International Studie
Teaching Medieval and Early Modern Cross-Cultural Encounters, 2014
Atense silence falls over the audience as Callimachus enters the tomb and hovers over the body of... more Atense silence falls over the audience as Callimachus enters the tomb and hovers over the body of Drusiana, the object of his desire even in death. Fortunatus, his accomplice, lingers nervously nearby as Callimachus proclaims his necrophiliac intentions. Percussive tones fill the theater, subtly at first, but building. As Callimachus approaches his victim, the music intensifies, coupled with the sound of marching, and Fortunatus’s agitation increases. The audience becomes more aware of the insistent beat as Fortunatus spies something in the distance. He cries, “Watch out!” just as the dragon, multicolored and more than ten feet in length, stomps slowly but intently into view. At the same time the music becomes recognizable; it is Nina Simone’s “Sinnerman.” Callimachus dashes across the stage as Simone sings, “Oh sinnerman, where you gonna run to?” In the “chase scene” that follows, pursuer and prey crisscross the stage, eliciting gasps from the audience as Callimachus’s acrobatics force the dragon to lurch and twist after him. Finally both Callimachus and his henchman are enveloped by the dancing dragon, and die.
Natalie Crohn Schmitt. Befriending the Commedia dell'Arte of Flaminio Scala: The Comic Scenar... more Natalie Crohn Schmitt. Befriending the Commedia dell'Arte of Flaminio Scala: The Comic Scenarios. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014. Pp. xiii + 328. $80.00. For all of the unique qualities that define the commedia dell'arte, one of its most distinguishing characteristics is something it lacks. As any theater student can tell you, there are no play scripts. Yet, significantly, more than 800 extant scenarios attest to the structure, style, and vitality of the tradition that has been called the most important theatrical movement of early modern Europe. Among these documents, only fifty were published during the height of the movement's popularity, printed as a single collection in 1611 by Flaminio Scala. While the value of Scala's collection as evidence of the tradition has never been questioned, the merits of the individual scenarios have been dismissed for a variety of reasons. According to Natalie Crohn Schmitt, the foundational issue lies in a misunderstanding of Scala's role in preserving the scenarios. In Befriending the Commedia dell'Arte of Flaminio Scala: The Comic Scenarios, Schmitt sets out not only to illuminate the richness of Scala's work within the context of sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Italian culture, but also to reclaim Scala as an "inventor" of the art within the specific Renaissance context of the word. Schmitt's project offers an important new perspective on the history of commedia dell'arte, for while scholarship on the tradition is robust, there is clearly opportunity for further work focused specifically on the texts and their genesis. The Routledge Companion to Commedia dell'Arte (2014), for example, includes more than fifty essays, but only two focus on the scenarios. Schmitt's lucid and incisive argument, grounded by extensive research into sixteenth-century Italian society as well as contemporary aesthetic theory, makes a compelling case for the complex relationship between the scenarios and the culture out of which they emerged. While Befriending the Commedia dell'Arte does not exhaustively analyze Scala's oeuvre, it does open the door for future scholars, revealing areas ripe for further investigation and an appropriate methodology for approaching such inquiries. The first half of Schmitt's monograph sets up this methodology with general examples garnered from a myriad of Scala's works; the second half applies the approach in depth to four select scenarios: Day 6: The Jealous Old Man, Day 21: The Fake Sorcerer, Day 25: The Jealous Isabella, and Day 36: Isabella [the] Astrologer. In part 1, Schmitt argues for the value of Scala's work on two distinct fronts. Firstly, she refutes the prevailing notion that commedia dell'arte scenarios represent an autonomous theatrical world that existed primarily in relation to stage conventions. Instead, she establishes the precise social and political contexts through which contemporary audiences would have appreciated the form's most common settings and characters, specifically in terms of relationships. Thus, Schmitt does not merely discuss the details of particular cities, but considers themes such as civic violence or the mobility of women in terms of Renaissance urban culture, often with pointed examples linking Scala's texts to unique communities. Likewise, instead of examining the conventions of individual comic types, Schmitt considers the dynamics between social pairings, such as fathers and sons or citizens and servants. A particularly interesting investigation of Capitano, for example, highlights a section entitled "Outsiders and Society." While some of the background given may seem to rehash well-known aspects of Renaissance culture, such as the ubiquity of mercenaries in Italian cities, Schmitt's contextualization of the dynamics between Italian citizens and Spanish soldiers opens her argument up to non-specialists in useful ways. The second level on which Schmitt investigates the value of Scala and his collection is through an analysis of the notion of "invention" grounded in Renaissance aesthetic theory. …
This dissertation examines the civic function of performance in Siena, Italy, from the nascent co... more This dissertation examines the civic function of performance in Siena, Italy, from the nascent communal era in the twelfth century through the ultimate collapse of the Sienese Republic in the middle of the sixteenth century. During this era the city-states that developed ...
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