Search

Stealing Beauty is a video performance by Guy Ben-Ner, where he films himself and his family surreptitiously in IKEA's Berlin, New York, and Netanya (Israel) showrooms. Stealing Beauty uses American family sitcom conventions to criticize global consumer culture and its related fantasies. Focusing on Stealing Beauty's secret process of production I argue that it employs anarchist-like strategies that hijacked the space of consumer culture and evoked Guy Debord's and Hakim Bey's anti-consumerist writings. Although this work circulates in international fine arts arenas and self- references itself as an art commodity, Stealing Beauty's use of hoax and critical engagements are further analysed as sharing elements with cultural-jamming practices by being subversive in public spaces and media arenas. Also addressed in this article are the gendered ramifications of Ben-Ner's performance as an artist and as a father and how he employs his family as a subversive collectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2010 New York passed the first legal protections for in‐home care workers in the United States. Amid these legal changes, care workers deploy collective complaint as a community‐building strategy, allowing immigrant women who are domestic workers—often isolated in private homes—to commiserate with one another through shared criticisms of their, mostly women, employers. Based on fieldwork among activist nannies in New York between 2010 and 2012, I argue that collective complaint is a critical source of solidarity and community for childcare providers while caregivers' rhetorical and affective strategies offer insight about the potential limitations of rights‐based legislation in this and other informal sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"But We Are Still Living in Maafa": Commemorating 1619-2019 through Ritual Performances of Healing and Hope in New Orleans and New York Keywords: Maafa; ritual; performance; Ashe Cultural Arts Center; Africana Liturgy EN Maafa ritual performance Ashe Cultural Arts Center Africana Liturgy 42 50 9 12/05/20 20201001 NES 201001 Since the mid-1990s, Maafa commemorations have emerged in various cities throughout the United States as ways to ritualize remembrance of a painful Black past. More specifically, the article focuses on The Ashé Center's and St. Paul Church's 2019 Maafa commemorations in the context of marking four hundred years since the first enslaved Africans were forcibly brought to Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. As such, the New Orleans Maafa commemoration is a mode of communal healing that attends to both personal and social ills "by addressing the participant's needs for commemoration of the past while moving forward to a more positive future."[20] Mitchem's argument concerning the reconfiguring of the past and future is captured in the Ashé Center's language surrounding their commemoration of the Maafa. [Extracted from the article]

The aim of the study was to investigate how women and men age group runners pace during a large city marathon. We analysed changes in running speed by splits of 5 km in 20,283 women and 28,282 men age group runners competing in the 2015 edition of the "New York City Marathon". A moderate split×sex interaction on running speed (p < 0.001, η2 = 0.108) was observed with men showing a larger decrease in speed from the fastest split (5-10 km) to the slowest one (35-40 km) than women (21.1 vs. 16.7%), and a different pattern was observed in the 25-30 km split (increase in women, decrease in men). A trivial split×age group interaction on speed was observed in women (p < 0.001, η2 = 0.003) and men (p < 0.001, η2 = 0.004). In summary, men and women of all age groups reduced running speed during the marathon with a final spurt in the last segment (i.e. 40-42.2 km). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Few studies have investigated detailed 3-dimensional lower extremity kinematics during baseball pitching in adolescent athletes during extended play. Changes in these parameters may affect performance outcomes. Purpose: To investigate whether adolescent baseball pitchers experience changes in lower extremity kinematics and event timing during a simulated game-length pitching bout. Study Design: Descriptive laboratory study. Methods: Twelve male adolescent pitchers (aged 14-16 years) threw 6 sets of 15 fastball pitches from an artificial pitching mound to a target at regulation distance. Joint angles and angular velocities at the hip, knee, and ankle of both legs were collected throughout the phases of the pitching cycle as well as stride length, pelvis orientation, pitch duration, timing of foot contact and ball release, ball speed, and pitching accuracy. Paired t tests (P < .05) were used to compare the dependent variables between the last 5 pitches of the second (baseline) and sixth (final) sets. Results: During the stride phase, decreased maximum angular excursions for hip extension (baseline: 14.7° ± 9.8°; final: 11.6° ± 10.3°; P < .05) and ankle plantar flexion (baseline: 30.2° ± 14.5°; final: 24.2° ± 15.3°; P < .05) as well as maximum angular velocity for knee extension (baseline: 144.9 ± 63.3 deg·s-1; final: 121.7 ± 62.0 deg·s-1; P < .05) were observed between sets in the trailing leg. At foot contact, pitchers had decreased hip flexion (baseline: 69.5° ± 10.1°; final: 66.5° ± 11.8°; P < .05) and increased hip abduction (baseline: 20.7° ± 8.9°; final: 25.4° ± 6.0°; P < .05) in the leading leg in the final set. Compared with the baseline set, ball speed significantly decreased in the final set (29.5 ± 2.5 m·s-1 vs 28.3 ± 2.5 m·s-1, respectively; P < .05). Conclusion: Kinematic changes and decreased ball speeds observed in the final set suggest that adolescent pitchers are unable to maintain lower extremity kinematics and performance as a result of extended play. Clinical Relevance: The results from this study may warrant further investigation into how altered lower extremity kinematics may affect trunk and upper extremity function, performance, and risk of injuries during pitching in adolescent athletes, particularly during actual game play. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A prison theatre workshop at Bayview Correctional Facility (BCF) in Manhattan combines improvisational techniques, play rehearsal, and performance. Ten women participate for eight weeks as cast and crew in a production of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf by African American playwright Ntozake Shange. The characters reflect different types of women in critical situations, breaking the long held silence marginalized women feel due to oppression. Written in poetic verse, scenes dramatize rites of passage, sisterhood and female sexuality, abandonment, poverty, abuse, rape, and unrequited love providing many archetypal roles that resonate with the actors and prison audience. This article is a descriptive account using both narrative and journal entries written contemporaneously during the production, focusing on the obstacles of mounting a theatrical production within a prison setting and on the challenges of working with female offenders. Archetypical roles from Robert Landy''s extensive work in drama therapy are referenced to reflect the function and diversity of role types in the drama and to illustrate how the artistic work expands the diminished life roles of women in prison. Thoughts on Agusto Boal''s theory regarding invitational theatre, within the setting of a prison, are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

ABSTRACT Aims There are no studies directly comparing self-administration of methamphetamine and d-amphetamine by humans. This study compared intranasal methamphetamine- and d-amphetamine self-administration and characterized the mood, performance and physiological effects produced by the drugs. Design A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over study. Setting An out-patient research unit at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. Participants Male recreational methamphetamine users ( n = 13). Measurements Five 2-day blocks of sessions were conducted. On the first day of each block, participants 'sampled' a single methamphetamine or d-amphetamine dose (0, 12, 50 mg/70 kg) and a monetary reinforcer ($5 or $20). Amphetamine plasma levels, cardiovascular, mood, and psychomotor performance effects were assessed before drug administration and repeatedly thereafter. On the second day of each block, participants chose between the sampled reinforcers (drug or money). Findings There were no significant differences between the drugs on the majority of measures. Under the $5 condition, both amphetamines increased self-administration dose-dependently, with 41% drug choices overall. Under the $20 condition, only 17% drug options were selected. Both drugs increased cardiovascular activity and 'positive' mood, although methamphetamine produced more prominent effects on some measures (e.g. heart rate and ratings of 'high'). Conclusions Methamphetamine and d-amphetamines appear to produce a similar dose-related profile of effects in humans, which supports their equivalence for abuse potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a conversation between several curators and artist-curators on the landscape and infrastructure involved in performance in New York City. Individuals involved in the discussion include the artist Morgan von Prelle Pecelli, the dancer and choreographer Trajal Harrell, the curator Travis Chamberlin, the artist manager and producer Ben Pryor and the choreographer Jonah Bokaer.

This article analyses the relationship between artistic practice and mobility through a focus on the translocal circulation of theatre. It works against the assumption that art and its creative practices are tied to particular contexts. Instead I suggest that examining translocal connection provides a framework through which to consider how practices of art-making are emplaced and differentiated, whilst also encompassing physical and imaginative movement. I demonstrate this argument by examining the writing, casting, and staging of the play M. Butterfly in New York City, London and Singapore. I analyse how these creative practices were related to translocal travel, but also demonstrate that such activities spilled beyond the performance to reorganise socio-cultural relations. As a result, my analysis views creativity as an interrelated set of artistic and social processes. This article thus extends contemporary geographical work on art and performance in two ways: first, by considering how artistic practices draw upon, and are influenced by, spatially extensive flows of people, finance and ideas; and second, by considering the creative effects of artworks as they circulate through different contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on contemporary African dance artist Souleymane Badolo and his performance in New York City. His solo performance, titled "Yaado," at the La MaMa's Ellen Stewart Theater, represented his own life journey and his being a living testimony of the Gurunsi rituals, dance and narratives. Observation shows the visibility of the traditional West African dance component of his choreography in his movement and in his words. It is viewed that Souleymane's sense of cultural endangerment is operated by few American and European artists.

In view of shortages of baccalaureate-trained nurses, the Visiting Nurse Service of New York embarked on an initiative to determine whether associate degree nursing graduates, through an intensive internship program, can perform on par with baccalaureate nursing (BSN) graduates. The associate degree in nursing (ADN) internship resembles the existing internship for BSN graduates but includes supplemental educational components. A quasi-experimental evaluation design was developed to examine the formative and summative outcomes of the initiative. ADN interns were compared with BSN interns on retention in the internship, clinical thinking, assessment skills, productivity, and intention to remain in nursing. Data were collected at pre- and postintervention intervals. Findings reveal few significant differences between the ADN and BSN interns, suggesting that with competitive recruitment, appropriate support, and supplementary training, ADN interns can perform on par with their BSN counterparts. The small number of participants in the internship programs presents a significant limitation to the study findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do principals adjust to new standards and measurement rulers of school performance when they are coupled with high-stakes consequences? Adopting a contingent view of leadership and a multiple accountabilities framework, this qualitative study explores how high school principals enacted their accountability in New York City, by comparing two periods: just before such policy changes took effect and just after. We observed large differences in principals' attention to external political, bureaucratic, and market accountabilities; how much accountability conflict or alignment was experienced; and how principals' sense of professionalism was constructed. These differences may portend a new politics of the principalship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

P.A.R.G.O.: Los Pecados Permitidos (2001) by the Dominican playwright, director, and actor Waddys Jaquez has resonated with diverse audiences across the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean because it presents a tragicomic vision of the interchange of people, capital, and culture between the north and the south. The author argues that the abject immigrant characters in Jaquez's darkly comic play perform the exclusion of transnational subjectivities from orthodox national imaginaries. In the play, four supposedly rehabilitated Latinos in New York City resist the normalizing action of a support group session—read here as assimilation—and display a politics of abjection that exposes the unremitting "ontological discomfort" of their transnationality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I examine El Conjunto Típico Ladí's seis con décima "Un jíbaro en Nueva York" (1947) as an exercise in performative (mis)translation. Following Patricia Gherovici's The Puerto Rican Syndrome and Frances Negrón-Muntaner's Boricua Pop, I argue that the song's performance of a jíbaro in New York builds upon what was already a contested and controversial construction-the Puerto Rican jíbaro-and posits a multilayered, synthetic, fluid, and highly ambivalent model of diasporic puertorriqueñidad. (In my reading, mistranslation functions not as an obstacle to diaspora's articulation, but as a key strategy of diasporic performance.) Lastly, I read this song against the Nuyorican movement's aesthetic and political resignifying of the jíbaro, as evidenced in Felipe Luciano's spoken-word piece "Jíbaro/My Pretty Nigger" and Héctor Lavoe and Willie Colón's Asalto navideño albums. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some events have such an impact on society that it is unclear whether the standard rules of political decision making still apply. This paper analyses the planning process of rebuilding Ground Zero as a case in which politics was unhinged and new procedures were invented on the spot. The politics of planning was not only about what should be done on the site, but also about the sort of procedure that should be followed to take a legitimate decision. The paper conceives of the political process as a sequence of staged performances and introduces a model that analyses policy processes in terms of discourse, dramaturgy and deliberation. It describes the rebuilding of Ground Zero as a case of an ‘unhappy performance’ in which, as the process continued, the wider publicly-shared determination to create a bold symbolic response to terrorism lost out to uninspired political-economic reasoning. It argues that this analysis of policy processes as performance deserves a much wider application as today's world is full of situations in which decisions are made in networks marked by unclear rules as to how to arrive at a legitimate decision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay addresses the complex processes of reinventing Native American traditions in the urban context. The focus is on the way ethnic borders are negotiated during the performance of intertribal powwows celebrated annually in New York City's YMCA. There, Native Americans open the doors to non-Native peoples in order to allow them to partake of traditional dances, songs and meals. The non-Natives engage in different levels of involvement according to their identification with native Americans, which may lead to crossover as in the case of the Puerto Rican Tainos. The essay explores how issues of ethnicity and nationality are debated in a continuing process of negotiation toward the emergence of intercultural identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the motion picture 'Without You I'm Nothing' by Sandra Bernhard in New York, New York. Description on Bernhard as an actress; Use of fictional live performance; Multiplicity of performative positions by Bernhard in the course of a single performance.

A review of the literature indicates that little empirical knowledge exists about what influences learning in master of social work (MSW) research courses. The current study presents data on selected student characteristics and course performance collected from 162 students in several sections of an MSW foundation research course in a single university. The sections had the same curricular content but were taught by four instructors with quite different professional backgrounds and teaching styles. Student performance did not differ across the different instructors. Undergraduate grade point average was positively correlated with performance, and having an undergraduate major in social service was negatively correlated, but other student characteristics were unrelated to performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]