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 Women who fly : aerialists in modernity (1880-1930)
Auteurs : Gils, Bieke [Auteur]
Éditeur : University of British Columbia
Lieu de publication : Vancouver
Date de publication : 2013
Langue : Anglais
Description : x, 191 p. : ill. ; 28 cm.
Notes : Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of philosophy in the faculty of graduate and postdoctoral studies (kinesiology). Bibliogr. : p. 174-191
Sujets:
Histoire de l'acrobatie aérienne
Femmes artistes de cirque
Histoire des arts du cirque - 19e siècle
Histoire des arts du cirque - 20e siècle
Histoire des arts du cirque - France
Histoire des arts du cirque - États-Unis
Études sur le genre
Travestisme
Représentation du corps circassien
Foires
Arts du cirque - Philosophie et théorie
Charmion [artiste de cirque]
Barbette [artiste de cirque]
Coleman, Bessie [aviatrice]
Trapèze - Histoire
Image de la femme dans les arts du cirque
Artistes de cirque afro-américains
Femmes - Identité
Identité culturelle
Artistes de cirque - Biographie
Trapeze Disrobing Act [oeuvre cinématographique]
Cirque au cinéma
Spectacle d'aviation - Histoire
Résumé:
Around 1900, Charmion (alias Laverie Vallée) introduced a provocative 'trapeze disrobing act,' combined with feats of strength to her audiences in vaudeville theaters in New York. She was one of a wave of female aerialists whose performances quite literally 'flew' in the face of Victorian values. Trapeze artists in circuses and in vaudeville theaters, as well as stunt flying aviators showcasing their courage and abilities during local fairs or aerial exhibitions from the 1910s on, indeed pushed the boundaries of what was deemed possible in terms of the human body's physical capacities while challenging traditional notions of gender, race, class, and sexuality through their unconventional performances. In this study I explore three cases of aerialists who navigated both the demands of managers/spectators for spectacular and titillating acts and their personal aspirations within the confines of the increasingly capitalist entertainment industries in the West between 1880 and 1930. Besides Charmion, my study takes shape around the performances of "Barbette" or Vander Clyde who took Parisian theaters by storm with an amalgamation of trapeze artistry and female impersonation in interwar France; and Bessie Coleman, the first African American woman to gain a pilot license and to set up her own flying shows throughout the United States in the 1920s. For each case study I conducted exhaustive archival searches and analysed relevant newspaper articles, magazines, show reviews, photographs and silent film. I draw on Mikhail Bakhtin's concepts of the carnivalesque and the grotesque, and on Victor Turner's concept of liminality to illustrate how aerial performances between 1880 and 1930 functioned as sites of creative resistance, opening up possibilities for a rethinking and redefinition of social categories of gender, race, class, and sexuality. I show how the performances of Charmion, Coleman and Barbette simultaneously reflected and challenged the anxieties and optimism of a society forced to revisit traditional beliefs regarding the gendered/racialized/classed/sexualized body. In demonstrating how these performers helped question modernizing beliefs regarding the human body's capacities, and the female body's physical abilities and appearance in particular, I argue they suggested new types of embodied agency for both women and men at the time. [editor summary]
Dépouillement du document :
I: WOMEN WHO FLY
Destabilizing Categories
Contextualizing the Case Studies
Thesis Structure
II: FRAMING AND TRACING THE AERIAL BODY
Framing
Introducing Bakhtin
Carnival and the Carnivalesque
The Grotesque Body
Bakhtin and the Omission of Women's Voices
Victor Turner and Liminality
Bakhtin, Turner, and Agency
Tracing
Reconstructing the Aerial Body
Biographical Case Studies
Sources/Traces
Searching for Charmion, Barbette, and Bessie Coleman
Searching for Charmion
Bringing Barbette to Light/Life
Commemorating Coleman
III: FLYING, FLIRTING AND FLEXING: CHARMION'S TRAPEZE ACT, SEXUALITY, AND PHYSICAL
Culture at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
From Unabashed Burlesque to Respectable Vaudeville
Charmion the Parisian Sensation
A Woman with the Muscles of Sandow
To View and Be Viewed
Swinging Between Freedom and Constraint
IV: LE NUMÉRO BARBETTE: DESTABILIZING GENDER ON THE HIGH WIRE, THE RINGS AND THE FLYING TRAPEZE
Barbette Beginnings
Paris Was the Experience...
Des Gens Ne Voient Dans les Spectacles Que Ce Qu'ils Sont
Their Love-life is Even Sadder...
Une Eve Future
Un Hommage à La Femme
Life after 1938
V: BESSIE COLEMAN: "THE ONLY RACE AVIATRIX IN THE WORLD"
The Winged Gospel's Female Missionaries
Dreams of Flight
On a Mission to France
Missionary, Entrepreneur, Entertainer
The Sky is the Limit for Queen Bess
VI: CONCLUSION
Contributions
Future Research
Collection / Fonds : BIbliothèque de l'École nationale de cirque
Localisation : Bibliothèque
Cote : 791.340 82 G4895w 2013
Type de publication : Publication scientifique
Disponibilité : Accessible en ligne
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