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Joseph Campbell - “The Ecstasy of Being”
Joseph Campbell - “The Ecstasy of Being”
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In 1937, Joseph Campbell, a young professor at Sarah Lawrence University in New York, met his future wife, Jean Erdman, a new student from Hawaii, when she asked to do an independent study with him on aesthetics. This began a lifelong partnership between Erdman, who went on to become a leading figure in modern dance as a principal dancer in Martha Graham's dance company who collaborated with Merce Cunningham and John Cage, and Campbell, whose work as a mythologist was deeply influenced by the world of modern dance that Erdman lived in. Decades later, after Campbell retired from teaching, he and Erdman would found the Theater of the Open Eye, where she was the artistic director and Campbell lectured. The Ecstasy of Being collects seven articles and lectures that Campbell gave on dance and the relationship between art and myth, along with the book he was writing when he died in 1987, called Mythology and Form , which explores the rise of modern art and dance during the twentieth century and its relationship to world mythology. He delves into the work of Isadora Duncan, the creator of modern dance, and relates her philosophy to that of other modern artists and philosophies. He explores the idea of Total Theatre, a form that incorporates music, dance, story, and cross-cultural influence, which he and Erdman practiced at the Open Eye. The collection is both characteristic of Campbell's extraordinary scholarly reach and a revelation for longtime Campbell fans for who may never have read his work on dance. In 2016 Erdman celebrated her one-hundredth birthday in Hawaii, where she and Campbell lived when not in New York City. In many way, The Ecstasy of Being is Campbell's posthumous love letter to the work and life of his wife, as well as a typically wide-reaching intellectual celebration of art and dance., A collection of Joseph Campbell's writing on modern dance, including the book he was working on when he died, Joseph Campbell's collected writings on dance and art, edited and introduced by Nancy Allison, CMA, the founder of Jean Erdman Dance, and including Campbell's unpublished manuscript "Mythology and Form in the Performing and Visual Arts," the book he was working on when he died. Dance was one of mythologist Joseph Campbell's wide-ranging passions. His wife, Jean Erdman, was a leading figure in modern dance who worked with Martha Graham and had Merce Cunningham in her first company. When Campbell retired from teaching in 1972, he and Erdman formed the Theater of the Open Eye, where for nearly fifteen years they presented a wide array of dance and theater productions, lectures, and performance pieces. The Ecstasy of Being brings together seven of Campbell's previously uncollected articles on dance, along with "Mythology and Form in the Performing and Visual Arts," the treatise that he was working on when he died, published here for the first time. In this new collection Campbell explores the rise of modern art and dance in the twentieth century; delves into the work and philosophy of Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham, and others; and, as always, probes the idea of art as "the funnel through which spirit is poured into life." This book offers the reader an accessible, yet profound and provocative, insight into Campbell's lifelong fascination with the relationship of myth to aesthetic form and human psychology., A wide-ranging exploration of art, dance, and myth that honors the work of Campbell's wife, Jean Erdman
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