Shadow woman : the extraordinary career of Pauline Benton / Grant Hayter-Menzies.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hayter-Menzies, Grant, 1964-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Benton, Pauline.

Women puppeteers--United States--Biography.

Women puppeteers.

Women performance artists--United States--Biography.

Women performance artists.

Shadow shows--United States--History--20th century.

Shadow shows.

Puppet theater--United States--History--20th century.

Puppet theater.

Shadow puppets--United States--History--20th century.

Shadow puppets.

Performance art--United States--History--20th century.

Performance art.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (261 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Montreal : McGill-Queen's University Press, 2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Kansas-born Pauline Benton (1898-1974) was encouraged by her father, one of America's earliest feminist male educators, to reach for the stars. Instead, she reached for shadows. In 1920s Beijing, she discovered shadow theatre (piyingxi), a performance art where translucent painted puppets are manipulated by highly trained masters to cast coloured shadows against an illuminated screen. Finding that this thousand-year-old forerunner of motion pictures was declining in China, Benton believed she could save the tradition by taking it to America. Mastering the male-dominated art form in China, Benton enchanted audiences eager for the exotic in Depression-era America. Her touring company, Red Gate Shadow Theatre, was lauded by theatre and art critics and even performed at Franklin Roosevelt's White House. Grant Hayter-Menzies traces Benton's performance history and her efforts to preserve shadow theatre as a global cultural treasure by drawing on her unpublished writings, the recollections of her colleagues, the testimonies of shadow masters who survived China's Cultural Revolution, as well as young innovators who have carried on Benton's pioneering work.

Contents:

Cultural Geographies

Shadow People

Willow-Patterned Cathay

The Red Gate Shadow Players

Oriental Curiosities

Shadows Pass

World War

Survival

Cultural Revolution

Shadow Woman

Monkey King

Epilogue

Appendix: The White Snake.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780773589100

0773589104

9780773589094

0773589090

OCLC:

1037912370