This chapter considers the tensions in Sino-American exchange diplomacy felt in the wake of the Watergate scandal and Richard Nixon’s resignation and replacement by Gerald Ford. Ford lacked domestic political authority and thus was unable to find the negotiating flexibility necessary to achieve a deal to establish official diplomatic relations with Beijing. The resulting deadlock in high-diplomatic negotiations was one cause of stasis and conflict over cultural exchanges in 1974 and 1975 that culminated in the last-minute cancellation of a tour by a famous Chinese performing arts troupe, news that made the front pages of US newspapers. This chapter also examines the more gradual accumulation of tension in exchanges arising from American resentment at tight controls on visitors to China and Chinese resentment at impolitic behavior by American guests, ranging from photographing evidence of Chinese “backwardness” to drunken brawls.

Chapter 1 provides a framework in which to consider Kamigata rakugo. Kamigata has been portrayed as practically opposite to Edo since the latter was established as the seat of the shogunate in the beginning of the seventeenth century, and this only intensified after the center of cultural production shifted there in the 1780s. The modern outcome of the longstanding east–west binarism is that Kamigata has been rendered substandard and therefore of less consequence than Edo/Tokyo, the center of power. Chapter 1 reviews Kamigata and Osaka history with a special focus on the early modern era, Osaka chōnin identity, and a brief discussion of traditional performing arts that share qualities with Kamigata rakugo. It will be through a discussion of these subjects that one will be able to gain a clearer understanding of what Kamigata rakugo is and why it differs from Tokyo rakugo. Reconfirming Kamigata and Osaka’s historical and cultural heritage will help one see that Kamigata rakugo is a product of its environment.

This chapter considers the concept of emotional labour in relation to Shakespearean drama. Emotional labour, a term coined by the sociologist Arlie Hochschild in her pioneering study of flight attendants, describes the skilled management of feeling by service and care workers. The concept has recent been taken up by critics of Shakespeare to characterise the work of the theatre in manipulating the emotions of its audience, a natural development given that theorists like Hochschild were themselves inspired by work on the performing arts. Against conceptions of emotional labour as evanescent and lacking in surplus value, the chapter argues that the emotional work of the stage has enduring effects on the bearing and sensibilities of its audience. Through readings of metatheatrical moments in Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Ben Jonson’s Every Man Out of His Humour, it contends that early modern plays were not only concerned with the expression and solicitation of emotion: they also explicitly sought to condition the emotional practice of their spectators.

This chapter describes the educational institutions of post-Reformation England and the conflicted role music, theater, and dance played in English life and educational schema. According to English conduct books and prescriptive literature, music and dance were necessary skills for accomplished gentlemen and gentlewomen to possess; they might also be useful for students at charity schools, who sought socio-economic improvement through marriage or the procurement of apprenticeships. Yet, as many scholars have noted, there was also a strong suspicion and overt antipathy toward music-making, playacting, and dancing – some religious thinkers believed that these activities could lead to lasciviousness, decadence, and effeminacy. Others expressed concern that female students might develop inappropriate relationships with their music and dance teachers.

Light musical theatre first appeared in Greece during the second half of the nineteenth century in the form of French operetta and vaudeville, bringing new morals that scandalized the nouveau-bourgeois society of Athens and divided the public into ‘Europeanists’ and ‘conservatives’. At the dawn of the twentieth century, Viennese operetta introduced light musical theatre, which thrilled Athenian audiences and represented the ‘imperial dream’ of the inhabitants of a small country on the fringes of Europe. Operetta inspired the creation of Greek musical theatre companies from the early twentieth century and became popular for tours of the south-eastern Mediterranean. This phase ended with the production of plays and performances of Greek operetta during the interwar period. This chapter offers a multi-sided approach to the expansion of operetta in Greek-speaking areas, which brought with it a renovation of the Modern Greek theatrical stage and life, invigorating it with a new repertoire and forming a new theatrical tradition. New operettas provided the frame for Greece’s twofold musical identity: Western and Oriental. Operetta served as a social melting pot between ‘high’ and ‘popular’ musical creation and was the source of many well-known songs

A brief reflection on the founding and development of algorave, events where musicians and visualists create music using algorithms, usually through live coding: live manipulation of algorithms as code. The essay reflects on the now-traditional role of projected code, the experience of performing at an algorave, and the role of code as creative material in embodied music improvisation.