Performance in Popular Culture

Sharon Mazer is Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies in Te Ara Poutama, the Faculty of Māori and Indigenous Development, at Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand.

PART I Screens and things1 The Marx Brothers: From stage to screen
2 Betty Boop’s animated performances
3 Performing the pandemic

PART II Boxed sets
4 Puppet plays: Boxes are made to be broken
5 I Love Lucy: From live performance to canned entertainment
6 Do you hear the people sing?

PART III Stars in our eyes
7 Like a diva: From Maria Callas to Madonna
8 Beyoncé’s Homecoming | ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’
9 Got Talent

PART IV Public arts/art’s publics
10 Fragments of the past, cabinets of curiosity and cultural convergences
11 Marina Abramovic is present
12 Pepper’s Ghost and the haunted, educational exhibits at Wellington Museum

PART V Sporting arenas and fields of play
13 The fix is in: Professional wrestling
14 Olympian opening ceremonies
15 Cheerleaders in the popular (American) imagination

PART VI Sideshows no more
16 Evangelical performance: From morality plays to the Power Team and Hell House
17 Queer shows
18 Feminism: One step forward, three steps back?

PART VII Culture shows
19 Performing Maori
20 Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre: Planted in London, popping up in Auckland
21 Making a show of royalty

PART VIII Power, politics and protest
22 Donald Trump and the pro-wrestling-ifi cation of politics in the USA
23 Race matters
24 Visions of the apocalypse