The Muse of Urban Delirium: The Arts and Social Change in Transformational Cities
It is argued that cities are shaped by the con frontation of reality and values as mitigated by the arts. More specifically, residents at the height of deep, profound, and rapid social, political, and economic change struggle to define and redefine their own identities. They often do so by creating...
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| Date: | 2018 |
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Iнститут соціології НАН України
2018
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| citation_txt | The Muse of Urban Delirium: The Arts and Social Change in Transformational Cities / B.A. Ruble // Социология: теория, методы, маркетинг. — 2018. — № 1. — С. 136-150. — англ. |
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| description | It is argued that cities are shaped by the con frontation of reality and values as mitigated by the arts. More specifically, residents at the height of deep, profound, and rapid social, political, and economic change struggle to define and redefine their own identities. They often do so by creating new artistic forms which, over time, become respectable as they themselves move into the mainstream. The article explores moments when the performing arts helped new social movers define who they are in six different cities on five continents inventing new forms of opera, theater, music, and dance. These cities shared a protean drive unleashed by their rising social classes which were struggling to define their own distinct identities within the very turmoil their own emergence had created.
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Blair A. Ruble
The Muse of Urban Delirium: The Arts and Social Change in Transformational Cities
BLAIR A. RUBLE,UDC 394; 793.3
Distinguished Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson In -
ternational Center for Scholars, Washington, DC
(USA)
The Muse of Urban Delirium: The Arts and
Social Change in Transformational Cities
Abstract
It is argued that cities are shaped by the confrontation of reality and values as
mitigated by the arts. More specifically, residents at the height of deep, profound, and
rapid social, political, and economic change struggle to define and redefine their own
identities. They often do so by creating new artistic forms which, over time, become
respectable as they themselves move into the mainstream. The article explores moments
when the performing arts helped new social movers define who they are in six different
cities on five continents inventing new forms of opera, theater, music, and dance.
These cities shared a protean drive unleashed by their rising social classes which were
struggling to define their own distinct identities within the very turmoil their own
emergence had created.
Keywords: urban sociology, city, arts, social changes, identities
БЛЭР А. РУБЛ,
ïî ÷åò íûé ÷ëåí Ìåæ äó íà ðîä íî ãî öåí òðà
ïîä äåð æêè ó÷å íûõ èì. Âóä ðî Âèëü ñî íà, Âà -
øèí ãòîí, îêðóã Êî ëóì áèÿ (ÑØÀ)
Муза урба нис ти чес ких грез: ис ку сство и со ци аль -
ные из ме не ния в транс фор ми ру ю щем ся го ро де
136 Со ци о ло гия: те о рия, ме то ды, мар ке тинг, 2018, 1
B. A. Ruble, 2018
Аннотация
Утвер жда ют, что го ро да фор ми ру ют свой об лик в ре зуль та те смяг ча е мой ис -
ку сством кон фрон та ции ре аль нос ти и цен нос тей. В час тнос ти, жи те ли, пре -
бы ва ю щие на под ъ е ме глу бин ных и стре ми тель ных со ци аль ных, по ли ти чес ких
и эко но ми чес ких пе ре мен, бо рют ся за опре де ле ние и пе ре опре де ле ние сво их
иден тич нос тей. Час то это про ис хо дит че рез со зда ние но вых ху до жес твен ных
форм, ко то рые со вре ме нем ста но вят ся впол не рес пек та бель ны ми, по па дая в
куль тур ный мейнстрим. На при ме рах шес ти раз ных го ро дов на пяти кон ти -
нен тах в статье ис сле ду ют ся опре де лен ные мо мен ты, ког да ис пол ни те льское
ис ку сство в но вых фор мах опе ры, те ат ра, му зы ки и тан ца по мо га ло но вым со -
ци аль ным де йству ю щим ли цам опре де лить ся, кто они есть. Общим для этих
го ро дов был не кий из мен чи вый им пульс, ко то рый вы сво бож дал ся при су тству -
ю щи ми там со ци аль ны ми клас са ми, при об ре та ю щи ми вес в об щес тве. Эти
клас сы бо ро лись за опре де ле ние со бствен ных от ли чи тель ных иден тич нос тей в
той са мой су ма то хе го ро да, ко то рая со зда ва лась их воз ник но ве ни ем.
Клю че вые сло ва: со ци о ло гия го ро да, го род, ис ку сство, со ци аль ные пе ре ме ны,
иден тич нос ти
БЛЕР А. РУБЛ,
ïî ÷åñ íèé ÷ëåí ̳æíà ðîä íî ãî öåí òðó ï³ä -
òðèì êè â÷å íèõ ³ì. Âóä ðî ³ëñî íà, Âà øèí ã -
òîí, îêðóã Êî ëóìá³ÿ (ÑØÀ)
Муза урбаністич них ма рень: мис тец тво і
соціальні зміни у місті, що транс фор мується
Анотація
Ствер джу ють, що міста фор му ють своє об лич чя у ре зуль таті по м’як шу ва ної
мис тец твом кон фрон тації ре аль ності із ціннос тя ми. Зок ре ма, меш канці, що
пе ре бу ва ють на підйомі гли бин них і стрімких соціаль них, політич них та еко -
номічних змін, бо рють ся за виз на чен ня та пе ре виз на чен ня своїх іден тич нос -
тей. Час то це відбу вається че рез ство рен ня но вих ху дожніх форм, що з пли ном
часу ста ють цілком рес пек та бель ни ми, й собі по трап ля ю чи до куль тур но го
мейнстри му. На при кладі шес ти різних міст на п’я ти кон ти нен тах у статті
досліджу ють ся певні мо мен ти, коли ви ко на вське мис тец тво у но вих фор мах
опе ри, те ат ру, му зи ки й тан цю до по ма га ло но вим соціаль ним дійо вим осо бам
виз на чи ти ся, хто вони є. Спільним для цих міст був де я кий мінли вий імпульс, що
його вивільня ли при сутні там соціальні кла си, на бу ва ю чи ваги у суспільстві. Ці
кла си бо ро ли ся за виз на чен ня влас них відмітних іден тич нос тей у тій самій ме -
тушні міста, що й утво рю ва ла ся з їхнім ви ник нен ням.
Клю чові сло ва: соціологія міста, місто, мис тец тво, соціальні зміни, іден тич -
ності
Со ци о ло гия: те о рия, ме то ды, мар ке тинг, 2018, 1 137
The Muse of Urban Delirium: The Arts and Social Change in Transformational Cities
Brook lyn, New York, was hardly the hip ster heaven dur ing the late 1980s
that it has be come to day. Brook lyn — like all of New York City — was at the
height of a ter ri ble crack co caine ep i demic when chaos and crime seemed to reign.
Im por tantly, as fear ful as New York at that time could feel, the city si mul ta -
neously was an enor mously cre ative place. This seem ing con tra dic tion of ur ban
de struc tion and cre ation stands at the cen ter of the ar gu ment put for ward in “The
Muse of Ur ban De lir ium” [Ru ble, 2017].
The con tra dic tory forces and trends re shap ing Brook lyn at the time were
starkly on dis play at the Brook lyn Acad emy of Mu sic. BAM — as the Acad emy
was and is known — had es tab lished it self as per haps New York’s most cut -
ting-edge large-scale arts in sti tu tion. The Acad emy’s main au di to rium was a
care fully — and un doubt edly, ex pen sively — ren o vated ruin, in which each crack
in the plas ter, peel ing painted wall, and ex posed pipe had been care fully planned.
The venue had just the right touch of stud ied de cay for any ex trav a ganza.
More strik ing, how ever, was the real de cay just out side, on the blocks along
down town Brook lyn’s At lan tic Av e nue. The city’s hor ri fy ing crack co caine ep i -
demic had tossed a pro ver bial match into the bor ough’s nox ious mix of vi o lence,
ra cial ten sions, crime, and pov erty. The do mes tic de crep i tude in side the BAM
au di to rium was noth ing com pared with what was hap pen ing out side on the
neigh bor ing streets. By turn ing their stage over to the wild imag i na tions of fron -
tier-break ing art ists, BAM’s overseers hoped to pro duce a man u fac tured de lir -
ium. But there was noth ing man u fac tured about the de lir ium out side.
One Oc to ber eve ning in 1988 per for mance stands out even against these
starkly con flict ing ten den cies, that of Lee Breuer and Bob Telson’s “The War rior
Ant”. Best sum ma rized by a “New York Mag a zine” critic John Si mon, “The War -
rior Ant” was “the story of the birth of the war rior ant, his de scent into hell to find
his ter mite fa ther, his dal li ance with a death moth that proves his un do ing, as told
among a Trinidadian car ni val with bands cir cling on gaud ily painted trucks by
nar ra tors in 18th cen tury cos tume, West Af ri can griots1 and Brazilian singers to
the accompaniment of Caribbean and Afro-Cuban music, Western chamber
music, American rock, with eighteen-foot mechanical ants, Egyptian belly
dancers, Chinese glove puppets2, and a bunraku3 puppet show” [Simon, 1988].
One par tic u lar per former stood out for all the crit ics even in this pan de mo -
nium: Tamamatsu Yoshida, a bunraku pup pet mas ter brought in from Osaka.
Among the many pup pets ap pear ing that eve ning was a four-foot tall sam u rai
play ing the bon gos4. Where did he and his craft emerge? How did they travel so
far to fit into the chaos of 1980s Brook lyn so ef fort lessly? It turns out that late
17th-cen tury Osaka where bunraku emerged was not all that far from 20th-cen -
tury Brook lyn.
138 Со ци о ло гия: те о рия, ме то ды, мар ке тинг, 2018, 1
Blair A. Ruble
1 Musicians and storytellers whose performances include tribal histories and genealogies.
The griot profession is hereditary.
2 A type of opera using cloth puppets.
3 A Japanese traditional puppet theatre in which half-life-size dolls act out a chanted
dramatic narrative.
4 A joined pair of small deep-bodied drums, typically held between the knees and played
with the fingers.
Osaka — long Ja pan’s lead ing com mer cial cen ter — was at the dawn of the
Tokugawa era1: a raucous, greed-driven town vibrating with the energies of
people who were looked down on by elites. Local merchants — who were
especially frowned upon by their aristocratic social superiors — embraced an
unruly new theatrical form that had emerged from sex-laced dances originally
performed by female theatrical troops — kabuki. Given censorship laws, puppets
could say things and do things that actors could not and, in Osaka in particular,
the theatrical dyad of kabuki and puppetry was born.
In other words, the the at ri cal cous ins of ka buki and bunraku are prod ucts of a
dis tinc tive ur ban cul ture at the height of a de lir ium cre ated by so cial and eco -
nomic trans for ma tions so rapid that they turned life on its head. They be came
more than fo rums for pop u lar en ter tain ment, though they cer tainly that; they be -
came ven ues in which an emerg ing class of towns peo ple de fined who they were.
They lasted for cen tu ries ever since be cause they gave mean ing to a cha otic ur ban
re al ity. Herein lies the deep con nec tion be tween a Jap a nese art form cen tu ries old
and a down-at-the-heels de cay ing Amer i can ur ban land scape. Fur ther more, here
are some po ten tially pow er ful in sights for un der stand ing the cre ative force of
cities.
Cities and Artistic Innovation
To un der stand how this is so, it is im por tant to set down some ba sic prin ci ples
about cit ies. First, cit ies are the larg est and ar gu ably most com plex prod uct of the
hu man en ter prise. Sec ond, be cause cit ies are made by hu mans, they are nec es sar -
ily im per fect. Third, that im per fec tion forces hu mans to be come in no va tive and
cre ative. Fourth, as a re sult, ur ban ex is tence en cour ages hu mans to be come
self-start ing achiev ers. To gether, these four as sump tions form the philo soph i cal
bed rock on which “The Muse of Ur ban De lir ium” rests.
This per spec tive is hardly orig i nal; but it does need to be re freshed over time.
Most well-read ur ban schol ars prob a bly re call pe rus ing Lewis Mumford’s “The
City in His tory” [Mumford, 1961]. As sem i nal as his crit i cal writ ing about cit ies
has been, Mumford has been over taken by the schol ar ship of the past half-cen -
tury; and more. This is hardly sur pris ing; it is the way of ac a demic in quiry. Yet, if
Mumford is not a good guide for reach ing a con tem po rary au di ence, where to
begin?
Among the nu mer ous pos si ble an swers to that ques tion lies Sir Pe ter Hall’s
as ton ish ingly im pres sive vol ume “Cit ies in Civ i li za tion” [Hall, 1998]. Hall’s
book, which ap peared a gen er a tion ago, ex plored what he iden ti fied as the un easy
and un sta ble ten sion be tween a set of con ser va tive forces and val ues — aris to -
cratic, hi er ar chi cal, re li gious, con form ist — and a set of rad i cal val ues which were
the ex act op po site: bour geois, open, ra tio nal, skep ti cal. For Hall, this ten sion pro -
duced so ci et ies that were trou bled about them selves.
In de fin ing what an i mates his work, Hall ar gued that cre ative cit ies are com -
plex, even dis or derly, cos mo pol i tan com mu ni ties. They are cer tainly not the eas i -
est and saf est places in which to live, but they are al ways forc ing their res i dents to
Со ци о ло гия: те о рия, ме то ды, мар ке тинг, 2018, 1 139
The Muse of Urban Delirium: The Arts and Social Change in Transformational Cities
1 The final period of traditional Japan under the shogunate (military dictatorship), which
lasted from 1603 to 1867 before the Meiji Restoration of 1868.
in vent. Hall dem on strates this by a mag is te rial tour of his tory’s most in ven tive
cit ies at mo ments when they were at their apo gees. True, he has sur prises — in ad -
di tion to Periclean Ath ens he writes about [El vis] Preslian Mem phis [Ten nes -
see]. But fun da men tally, Hall is look ing at places long ac knowl edged to be places
at the top of their game.
“The Muse of Ur ban De lir ium” tells the story of a dif fer ent kind of city — one
that is far closer to the norm of ur ban life. This vol ume ex am ines the sorts of
places that per haps never are thought of as even hav ing a game to be at the top of.
They are the rough and tum ble places that of ten get over looked in his tory. Even
when ex am in ing such an ob vi ous can di date for ur ban glory as New York, that
city is ap proached through the prism of im mi grants, Af ri can Amer i can cre ativ ity,
and Yid dish thea tre1.
Ac cept ing the wis dom of Span ish nov el ist and jour nal ist Manuel Vázques
Montalbán — who once wrote, “I like cit ies that de stroy them selves. Tri um phant
cit ies smell of dis in fec tant” [Vázques, 2003: p. 3], “The Muse of Ur ban De lir ium”
ex plores six dif fer ent mo ments when the per form ing arts help new so cial mov ers
de fine who they are. These are sto ries which played out in six dif fer ent cit ies on
five con ti nents in vent ing new forms of op era, the ater, mu sic, and dance. De spite
all their ob vi ous dif fer ences, these cit ies shared a pro tean drive un leashed by
their ris ing so cial classes which were strug gling to de fine their own dis tinct iden -
ti ties within the very tur moil their own emer gence had cre ated. These are the sto -
ries of the emer gence of ka buki and bunraku pup petry in Osaka and of Ba roque
comic op era in Na ples dur ing the 17th and 18th cen tu ries; early 20th-cen tury
tango in Bue nos Ai res and mu si cal thea tre in New York; and late 20th- and
21st-cen tury mu sic in Cape Town and the ater in Yekaterinburg.
The Creative Power of Urban Delirium
This ex plo ra tion is an i mated fur ther by an other pow er ful in sight drawn from
the ur ban lit er a ture; namely Rem Koolhaas’ no tion of ur ban de lir ium. In his
path-break ing ex hor ta tion of New York dur ing the 1970s “De lir i ous New York”,
Koolhaas ar gued that the me trop o lis strives to reach a myth i cal point where the
world is com pletely fab ri cated by man so that it ab so lutely co in cides with his de -
sires [Koolhaas, 1978: p. 293]. But how are those de sires shaped?
That prior ques tion is the fo cus of “The Muse of Ur ban De lir ium” which ar -
gues that cit ies are shaped by the con fron ta tion of re al ity and val ues as mit i gated
by the arts. More spe cif i cally, res i dents at the height of deep, pro found, and rapid
so cial, po lit i cal, and eco nomic change strug gle to de fine and re de fine their own
iden ti ties. They of ten do so by cre at ing new ar tis tic forms which, over time, be -
come re spect able as they them selves move into the main stream. For ex am ple, in
the course of four de cades hip-hop moved from its in ven tion at a 1973 back-
to-school party in a hous ing pro ject on Sedg wick Av e nue in the Bronx to the
heart of Manhattan on Broad way in Manhattan with the 2015 ar rival of the
transformational mu si cal “Ham il ton”.
For New York the ater, the 1920s were a glo ri ous Golden Age — with new the -
aters, new plays, cel e brated pro duc tions, and an ever-ex pand ing au di ence. Al -
140 Со ци о ло гия: те о рия, ме то ды, мар ке тинг, 2018, 1
Blair A. Ruble
1 Also known as the Yiddish Rialto. The theatre had gained popularity by the mid-1920s.
though the mov ies be gan to cut into the ater au di ences else where, the fris son of
live per for mances and sound kept the stage on top in New York, and would do so
through out the de cade. Even tu ally, how ever, the “talk ies”1 and the Great De -
pres sion would bring the curtain down on this unique era of the Broadway
theater’s cultural preeminence.
This Golden Age emerged through the in te gra tion of out sid ers — im mi grants
and Af ri can Amer i cans — into a pre vi ously na tive pre dom i nately Eu ro pean the -
ater cul ture. Sig nif i cantly, many of the New York ers rec re at ing this cul ture were
born abroad, or were the chil dren of im mi grant par ents. For ex am ple, some 1,500
mu si cians em i grated from war-and-rev o lu tion-torn Eu rope be tween 1933 and
1944, and many set tled in New York. Broad way was full of am bi tious im mi grants.
Why? Per haps these im mi grants were more ob ser vant of the Amer i can re al -
ity that they sought to en ter, and per haps they drew on their pre vi ous con nec -
tions and tra di tions in their home lands to pro vide the cul tural and so cial cap i tal
they needed to make their way in the New World. Per haps, as in Ar gen tina, these
out sid ers were less shaped by the myths of lo cal elites. Or per haps an en ter tain -
ment busi ness dom i nated by im mi grants was more open to out sid ers than other
realms of Amer i can life, such as fi nance, busi ness, and the law. Most crit i cally,
per haps these im mi grants’ new home town — ar gu ably, the most suc cess ful im mi -
grant city the world has ever known — cre ated plen ti ful op por tu ni ties for them to
shine.
The 1920s wit nessed the ar rival of new tal ents in the world of New York the -
ater. These men and women would de fine Amer i can pop u lar stage cul ture for
much of the re main der of the 20th cen tury. Yet, Broad way the ater — and the
larger city which pro duced it — would un dergo con sid er able change fol low ing
the Sec ond World War.
In many ways, post war New York was the same city it had been for much of
the 20th cen tury. Sev eral trends, how ever, were be gin ning to make them selves
felt, which, within a de cade or two, would de fine rapid ur ban de cline. Au to mo -
biles and sub ur ban dreams car ried more and more res i dents to homes out side the
city; im mi grants, re stricted by law in the mid-1920s, be gan to dis ap pear; and
man u fac tur ing fled first out of town, then to the ris ing Amer i can Sun Belt, and
even tu ally abroad.
A sharp de cline in the per cent age of New York ers who were for eign born rep -
re sents an enor mously im por tant change. By 1970, less than 20 per cent of the
city’s pop u la tion had been born abroad, an all-time low. This trend re versed it self
in the 1970s and 1980s as a re sult of an open ing of the US fed eral im mi gra tion pol -
icy. By the first de cade of the 2000s, more than a third of all New York ers had
been born abroad.
These tu mul tu ous changes — first, the end of de cades of near-con tin u ous
growth; then, ca lam i tous de cline; and fi nally, a re mark able re vival — shaped what
would ap pear on New York stages as well as who would be in the au di ence. New
York ers who were re cent im mi grants brought fresh en ergy, mu sic, and tastes to
Broad way, as they had al ways done be fore. The search for new iden ti ties trans -
formed what peo ple wanted to hear and see, as did new tech nol o gies — rang ing
Со ци о ло гия: те о рия, ме то ды, мар ке тинг, 2018, 1 141
The Muse of Urban Delirium: The Arts and Social Change in Transformational Cities
1 Another name for early sound movies.
from long-play ing re cord ings to tele vi sion, to com puter screens, the Internet,
and the Cloud.
A youn ger gen er a tion of com pos ers, lyr i cists, cho re og ra phers, di rec tors, pro -
duc ers, and per form ers bri dled at what they saw to be lim i ta tions of their men tors
and their se niors. Their im pa tience with ex ist ing forms grew out of dif fer ent re al -
i ties they ex pe ri enced com ing of age. They ap pre ci ated dif fer ent kinds of mu sic —
in clud ing the sounds ex pressed by Af ri can Amer i cans — and they were drawn to
mod ern dance — as op posed to clas si cal bal let and tra di tional mu si cal dance
forms such as tap1. They had been well ed u cated, hav ing bene fited from the new
the ater and mu sic pro grams that were be ing of fered at the na tion’s top uni ver si -
ties and con ser va to ries — and thus they had com pleted courses in now-well-es -
tab lished drama pro grams and had re ceived more in clu sive mu sic ed u ca tions that
moved be yond Eu ro pean clas si cal train ing.
En dur ing art forms con tin u ally prompt cries of de spair over their im pend ing
death. Many times, crit ics have de clared the im mi nent death of op era, bal let, jazz,
blue grass2, ka buki, the ater, and Broad way. Yet new gen er a tions come along and
dis cover what came be fore them in new ways. Just as some be gan to write of
Broad way as noth ing more than light di ver sion for tour ists, Lin-Manuel Miran -
da came along.
Miranda was born in Manhattan of Puerto Ri can her i tage, and he grew up in
Inwood, a blue-col lar neigh bor hood near the is land’s north ern tip cut off by sub -
way switch ing yards from down town. The area evolved from be ing the home of
Jew ish and Irish im mi grants to the home of His panic — of ten Do min i can — new -
com ers. This end of Manhattan has long been re served for the lat est ar riv als to
find their way in a new home land, of ten giv ing rise to new cul tural per mu ta tions
in the pro cess.
Miranda’s first show — “In the Heights” — set Broad way on fire by bring ing
new en ergy from the ever-evolv ing life of the city around them. But “In the
Heights” was just the be gin ning. In 2015, Miranda’s hip-hop in ter pre ta tion of
Ron Chernow’s au thor i ta tive bi og ra phy of Al ex an der Ham il ton [Chernow,
2004] broke ev ery mold on Broad way. Start ing out with its two-month run at the
Pub lic The ater, “Ham il ton” tells the story of one of the coun try’s most over -
looked found ing par ents through the lens of the hip-hop gen er a tions in fused with
the sounds of New York’s street cul ture.
Music from the Streets onto the Stage
Be yond Osaka and New York, 17th- and 18th-cen tury Na ples, turn-of-
the-20th-cen tury Bue nos Ai res, and late 20th-cen tury Yekaterinburg and Cape
Town of fer ad di tional ex am ples of how ur ban life trans forms per for mance cul -
ture. For ex am ple, Na ples un der Span ish Hapsburgian vice re gal ad min is tra tion
be tween 1503 and 1700, and un der Bour bon rule, which lasted with in ter rup -
tions from 1734 un til 1861, was a place where the fu ture of Eu ro pean mu sic be -
142 Со ци о ло гия: те о рия, ме то ды, мар ке тинг, 2018, 1
Blair A. Ruble
1 A style of dancing in which the dancers tap the rhythm of the music with their feet, wearing
special shoes with pieces of metal on the heels and toes.
2 A type of folk music originating in Kentucky known as the “Bluegrass State”. Bluegrass is a
plant that grows in many of the state’s pastures.
came its pres ent. The Ne a pol i tans suc cess fully in ter jected mid dle- and low-brow
mu si cal forms into high-brow ones. In do ing so, they added the verve and en ergy
of their own city to pro pel Eu ro pean clas si cal mu sic for ward.
Na ples was more than the cap i tal of the world’s mu sic. It was a mix ing bowl in
which Eu ro pean mu sic be came su per charged with the vi tal ity of the non-aris to -
cratic. Ne a pol i tan per form ers and com pos ers re shaped op era by bring ing the con -
tra dic tions of ev ery day Ne a pol i tan life to the stage. From there, they moved on to
re shape Eu ro pean mu sic as they spread out across the con ti nent.
As Greek col o nists quickly ap pre ci ated, the Bay of Na ples prom ises hu mans
one of the most sa lu bri ous hab i tats on the planet. The bay’s en vi ron ment, in fact,
is so per fect that lo cal res i dents have rarely been forced to be en ter pris ing. They
have merely needed to live off the land and sea as the mild Med i ter ra nean cli mate,
safe har bor, tur quoise sky, and in digo sea have sus tained lush veg e ta tion boosted
by a deep-layer rich vol ca nic soil and an easy grow ing sea son.
Yet all was not quite idyl lic. The in hab it ants of this earthly par a dise con -
stantly faced the pos si bil ity of near-in stan ta neous an ni hi la tion by Mount Ve su -
vius. Cat e go rized as a “red” vol cano for the lava that pe ri od i cally spews from its
crater, Ve su vius has erupted cata clysmi cally over the cen tu ries, as when it erad i -
cated the Ro man port cit ies of Pom peii and Herculaneum in AD 79.
The city’s com bi na tion of nat u ral ap peal and peril has nour ished a lively cul -
ture marked from the time of its orig i nal set tlers, the Epicureans, by a dis tinc tive
blend of sen su ous, joy ful he do nism and rig or ous, stern sanc tity — of pa gan ism
and pi ety. Against this back drop of anx i eties over their un rul i ness and de prav -
ity — com pli cated by vol ca nic erup tions and other nat u ral ca lam i ties — the Ne a -
pol i tans turned across the cen tu ries to mu sic, fri vol ity, and prayer for so lace and
sal va tion.
Pop u lar mu sic merged with sa cred mu sic, as the ver nac u lar and the for mal
flowed to gether with wild mu sic — in clud ing the vil la nel la, frot tola, and the mu si -
cal ac com pa ni ment to the taran tella1 dance — waft ing through out the city’s
streets and al ley ways. The merely do mes tic com bined with the com mu nal, au di -
ble sen sa tions of life in Eu rope’s most densely packed city, where peo ple lived lit -
er ally on top of one an other. By the 17th and 18th cen tu ries, Na ples had be come
one of the in dis put able mu sic cap i tals of Eu rope.
Seen from this van tage point, the Ne a pol i tans unsurprisingly em braced the
emerg ing per form ing art of op era in the early 17th cen tury. How ever, the se ri ous
clas si cal al le gory of op era seria2 pro vided far too ear nest a back drop for Ne a pol i -
tan life. There fore, by the early 18th cen tury, li bret tists, com pos ers, pro duc ers,
and per form ers had be gun to look for ways to en liven the eve ning by in ter ject ing
comic in ter ludes in be tween the acts of the main per for mance. These ex u ber ant
entr’acte cre ations drew on lo cal char ac ters from the streets of Na ples, as op posed
Со ци о ло гия: те о рия, ме то ды, мар ке тинг, 2018, 1 143
The Muse of Urban Delirium: The Arts and Social Change in Transformational Cities
1 Villanella is a Neapolitan 16th-century part song, usually for three unaccompanied voices.
Frottola is an Italian secular song popular in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. It could be
performed by unaccompanied voices or by a solo voice with instrumental accompaniment.
Tarantella is a couple folk dance characterised by a fast upbeat tempo. The musical accompani -
ment is provided by the accordion, castanets, and tambourines.
2 Opera seria (“serious opera”) is an Italian dramatic opera with a classical or mythological
theme. It emerged in the late 17th and was dominant throughout the 18th century.
to Greek and Ro man heroes. Their per form ers sang their roles in lo cal di a lect
rather than more for mal Ital ian, Latin, or Greek. Their sto ries — which were of ten
in co her ent and un struc tured — were nat u ral and spon ta ne ous. Their mu sic fa -
vored straight for ward mel ody. Their com edy fa vored broad buf foon ery and rid i -
cule that of ten bor dered on the crude. And their un de vel oped char ac ters came
straight from the stock of tra di tional com media dell’ arte1 story lines.
Over time, these short entr’acte per for mances, which were done in front of
the closed cur tain, were used to de flect at ten tion from the stage, set ting changes
tak ing place be hind. Per form ers de vel oped stan dard ized forms en gag ing the au -
di ences, so these short in ter ludes gained pop u lar ity on their own. Even tu ally,
these small di ver sions evolved into their own art form, the Ne a pol i tan op era
buffa2. Though op era buffa spread through Eu rope — reach ing its pin na cle
achieve ments with Mo zart’s three col lab o ra tions with his li bret tist, Lorenzo da
Ponte (“Le Nozze di Figaro” [1786]; “Don Giovanni” [1787]; and “Così fan tutte”
[1789–90]) and Gioachino Rossini’s “Il Barbiere di Sivigile”3 [1816] — it none -
the less remained quintessentially Neapolitan.
Since its found ing, Na ples has been such a city of sud den and dis con cert ing
jux ta po si tion of op po sites — the sort of place that cre ates and rec re ates over and
over again the kind of de lir i ous ur ban ism that con stantly bursts forth with in ven -
tion and cre ativ ity. The Na ples of par a dise and dev ils — of de lir ium and cre ativ -
ity — is a place where the dev ils make the mu sic.
Melding the Incompatible into Something New
Mov ing to turn-of-the-20th-cen tury Bue nos Ai res, the Argentinian port was
then the sec ond larg est city in the Amer i cas; and the sec ond larg est im mi grant
city in the world. Ar gen tina and Bue nos Ai res al ready had sur vived a par tic u larly
tu mul tu ous his tory from the city’s early times as the larg est slave port in South
Amer ica and a backdoor con tra band trad ing post into the heart land of Span ish
Amer ica to the north. As late as the mid dle of the 19th cen tury, the city re mained
more or less a third Afro-Ar gen tine, a leg acy which later elites worked as hard as
they could to erase in an ef fort to turn their coun try and city into the most “Eu ro -
pean” (read “white”) on the con ti nent.
By the cen tury’s end, tens of thou sands of mi grants from South ern Eu rope
had steamed into the great port city’s downscale neigh bor hoods bring ing along
with them their lan guages, re li gions, folk tra di tions, and mu sic. Once there, they
met with dis placed ru ral farm hands and cow hands and the de scen dants of a
once-vi brant Afro-Ar gen tine com mu nity to cre ate a new ur ban cul ture. The ex -
plo sive fu sion of these groups changed eat ing hab its, court ing pat terns, re li gious
prac tices, and the lan guage of ev ery day life, while pro duc ing vi brant new dances
in clud ing what be came known as tango.
144 Со ци о ло гия: те о рия, ме то ды, мар ке тинг, 2018, 1
Blair A. Ruble
1 An Italian popular comedy, developed chiefly during the 16th–18th centuries, in which
masked entertainers improvised from a plot outline based on themes associated with stock
characters and situations.
2 A comic opera, especially one with characters and situations drawn from everyday life.
3 “The Marriage of Figaro”, “Thus Do All Women”, “The Barber of Seville”.
Tango took shape at the end of the 19th cen tury; draw ing on el e ments
brought by poor mi grants from the in te rior, im mi grants from Eu rope, and mem -
bers of the Afro-Ar gen tine Monserrat neigh bor hood in town. The story of how
tango emerged from their mélange is a com plex one open to great dis pute. The
larger point is that the de vel op ment of the tango – which has no foun da tional mo -
ment but sud denly just was — is the story of ex iles. More spe cif i cally, the his tory
of tango is the his tory of those ex iles be com ing true porteños1 — the his tory of out -
sid ers be com ing in sid ers.
Tango cul ture is in clu sive, mu tat ing to ab sorb new in flu ences. Once sub -
merged into tango cul ture, the out sider and the new comer be come one with the
great city it self. The pre cise or i gins of the tango are long lost. Like Amer i can jazz
and Bra zil ian choro2 and samba, the tango is what hap pens when Eu ro pean, Af ri -
can, and Amer i can rhythms, mu sic, in stru ments and bod ies col lide. How that col -
li sion started is hid den away from view as it tran spired in the sorts of ur ban cor -
ners where out sid ers rarely ven tured and in sid ers did n’t bother to re cord.
Tango, of course, went in ter na tional and trans formed it self all along the way.
Tango to day is no more Andalusian, Af ri can, Med i ter ra nean, or even Ar gen tine
that it was when it emerged on the edge of a grow ing me trop o lis at the edge of the
world. Com plex and, at times, bru tal, the tango is more than any thing else beau ti -
ful. Its beauty is caused by the con stant pre car i ous ness of life in a city where the
ka lei do scope of cul tural dif fer ences spins too quickly. It is what hap pens when an
ur ban cul ture and a met ro pol i tan place force peo ple who can barely stand one an -
other to em brace.
A sim i lar pat tern emerged within the mu sic of Cape Town. The Sec ond
World War marked a turn ing point for Cape Town, as it did for so much of the
world. The pres ence of sol diers and sail ors from around the world — in clud ing Af -
ri can Amer i can war riors — only height ened the pos si bil ity for cross-cul tural pol -
li na tion. More forms of Amer i can pop u lar cul ture ar rived with the troops; more
money flowed through town. The city de vel oped a dis tinc tive jazz scene which
drew en er gies cre ated by the mix ing of mul ti ple mu si cal cul tures.
Af ri kaner na tion al ism was also on the rise, fu eled in part by the grow ing pres -
ence of the Eng lish lan guage, brought along by Brit ish war ef forts and Amer i can
pop u lar cul ture. More per ni ciously, seg re ga tion — of ten prac ticed by cus tom —
was be com ing an ideo log i cal an chor for the South Af ri can re gime. Ra cial sep a ra -
tion, which had been om ni pres ent through out South Af ri can his tory, be came
steadily more pro nounced as the coun try en tered the post war era. Within a few
years, ev ery state in sti tu tion had been Afrikanerized. The Na tion al ists’ sig na ture
pol icy be came quickly known as apart heid, a pro gram of race-based so cial en gi -
neer ing that ap plied firm ra cial cat e go ries which claimed to pro vide a “sci en tific”
ba sis for iden ti fy ing ra cial groups.
The his tory of apart heid is also the his tory of re sis tance, pri mar ily by Af ri -
cans. The lo cal Cape Town ur ban cul ture — with its long his tory of ra cial pro pin -
quity and de cades of Brit ish co lo nial rule — stood as a slight to the new re gime.
Si mul ta neously, how ever, many Capetonians sup ported — or at least ac qui esced
Со ци о ло гия: те о рия, ме то ды, мар ке тинг, 2018, 1 145
The Muse of Urban Delirium: The Arts and Social Change in Transformational Cities
1 People who live in a coastal (port) city of South America.
2 An instrumental popular music genre whose origin dates back to 19th century Rio de
Janeiro.
to — apart heid; and oth ers bene fited per son ally from the var i ous dis lo ca tions
that were be ing im posed from Pre to ria. A long and com plex re la tion ship de vel -
oped among the au thor i ties, the op po si tion, and Cape Town’s var i ous ur ban com -
mu ni ties.
The rac ist world sur round ing jazz was hard en ing fast. If the im pro vi sa tional
free dom of the mu sic chal lenged the found ing ten ets of the au thor i tar ian re gime,
this re gime in turn chal lenged the im pro vis ers. There were fewer and fewer ven -
ues where jazz play ers could per form (even within their own ra cial groups). Re -
cord com pa nies and state-con trolled me dia out lets stopped pro mot ing the mu sic
and the mu si cians. Mu si cians could not get gigs; they were not be ing hired to
teach; they were not be ing sought out by fans. Some of Cape Town’s best jazz
play ers stayed in town, play ing for fam i lies, friends, and other mu si cians, when -
ever and wher ever they could. Oth ers went abroad, en rich ing the jazz scenes of
cit ies across Eu rope and North Amer ica.
De spite the bound aries im posed by apart heid, South Af ri can jazz thrived
cre atively in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. New sounds flooded into Cape Town.
Cape Town’s econ omy cre ated a de mand for la bor that could only be met by Af ri -
can mi grants from the coun try side. Un able by law to live just any where, these mi -
grants piled into in creas ingly self-built town ships on the Cape Flats on the other
side of Ta ble Moun tain from down town. They brought their mu si cal lives with
them.
Over time, the role of mu sic in op po si tion to apart heid would grow and, with
it, the trans gres sion of mu si cal bound aries would gain in sig nif i cance. In Cape
Town, a col lec tive of lo cal mu si cians of all gen res — the “Mu si cal Ac tion for Peo -
ple’s Power” — or ga nized in the 1980s to per form at ral lies, pro tests, and other
events that brought to gether mu sic from jazz to Zulu dance. Such ef forts cre ated
new forms of “Afro-pop fu sion”, which blended mu sic from many styles. “Mu si cal
Ac tion” even tu ally be came a com bined town ship book ing agency, en sem ble sta -
ble, mu sic school, and stu dent big band, thereby cre at ing new op por tu ni ties for
the sort of syn cre tis tic cross-fer til iza tion that has marked Cape Town’s mu sic
from the very be gin ning.
The city’s his tory, from the mo ment a mot ley band of Dutch East In dia Com -
pany em ploy ees stum bled to the shore, has been marked by all the crimes, in jus -
tices, and in dig ni ties that the hu man mind can con jure to com mit against those
who are some how dif fer ent. The hu man mind seems ca pa ble of of fer ing up end less
cri te ria for as sert ing dif fer ences, so the city’s past and pres ent have con tained far
more sto ries of vil lainy than de cency.
Yet the in cred i bly rich his tory of Capetonian mu sic re veals a dif fer ent story,
one of im prob a ble beauty and in ven tive ness. From the mo ment when the Dutch
ar rived at Ta ble Bay, the town has been home to an op u lent mul ti plic ity of hu -
man kind, each seek ing so lace and mean ing in the cre ation and per for mance of
song and dance. The in ter min gling of in dig e nous Af ri can and im ported Eu ro pean
and Asian in stru ments; the two-cen tury long ab sorp tion, ad ap ta tion, and re -
invention of Amer i can mu si cal forms that con tin ues un til to day; and the stun -
ning in te gra tion of Is lamic, Chris tian, and Af ri can vo cal forms — all speak to an
un com mon Capetonian ca pac ity to cre ate au ral beauty. Mu sic in Cape Town has
be come a most hu man re sponse to how in di vid u als can as sert their hu man ity and
claim the dig nity that is their due in a world of con stant brut ish as sault. Cape
146 Со ци о ло гия: те о рия, ме то ды, мар ке тинг, 2018, 1
Blair A. Ruble
Town’s mu si cal sub con scious has al ways un der stood that we are all the bear ers of
the same mixed-up cul tural bredie1.
Confronting Authoritarianism
An other strik ing ex am ple of cre ative beauty emerg ing in an un ex pected ur -
ban cor ner is Yekaterinburg. Lo cated a hand ful of ki lo me ters in side Asia’s west -
ern bor der, the city is Rus sia’s fourth larg est city, a ma jor in dus trial cen ter, one of
Rus sia’s ma jor crim i nal cen ters, and the fo cal point of the “New Rus sian Drama”
move ment that pro duced an other star tling “golden” age in Rus sian the ater.
Founded in 1723 by Pe ter the Great, the city was ev ery bit a prod uct of em -
pire as Bue nos Ai res, New York, and Cape Town — but as a land locked fron tier
town rather than a randy port city. Un usual for im pe rial Rus sian cit ies, Yeka -
terin burg was an in dus trial head quar ters rather than an ad min is tra tive cen ter
and, as such, was al ways driven by the im per a tives of busi ness and en gi neer ing
rather than by the ex i gen cies of ide ol ogy and pol i tics. De vour ing tal ent, the city
be came the sort of melt ing pot of em pire that pro motes un re fined interethnic and
in ter class con tact that nur tured a dis tinc tive “soul”, as a lit er ary lion Valentin
Luk’yanin2 likes to put it. That soul outlived the city’s Soviet experience.
What is im por tant for the story be ing told here is that, by the late 1990s, this
hard-edged rough and tum ble town had no short age of tal ented the ater peo ple
and no dearth of peo ple who had been slapped in the face by life, pushed into the
gut ter, and aban doned by those who ran the show. The ater re quires more than
set ting down ideas from a sin gle mind with a pen and pa per or a key board and
screen. Plays are so cial acts, re quir ing play wrights and ac tors and di rec tors and
spon sors, and stages, and au di ences and money.
Early in the 1990s, many ob serv ers ar gued that the ater was just one more vic -
tim of the post-So viet tran si tion. Be cause it seemed com mer cially unviable and
be reft of fresh ideas, Rus sian the ater en tered a pe riod that to many was marked by
death throes of ex cru ci at ing pain. But just as some were sound ing the death knell
for the Rus sian stage, the “New Rus sian Drama” move ment was co alesc ing
around the nexus of sev eral mo men tous events in clud ing the ar rival of the Brit ish
Coun cil, the Royal Court Thea tre, and Brit ish “In-Yer-Face”3 theater motivated
by the notion that writers and theater troupes should interact with everyday life
and not just amuse comfortable patrons.
New com ers from far-flung pro vin cial cit ies such as Yekaterinburg, Togliatti,
Kemerovo, Omsk, and Irkutsk found a co her ent new voice to ex press the trau mas
and pa thol o gies of their daily lives. While each of these re gional cen ters has an
im por tant role in the story, Yekaterinburg be came the fo cal point be cause, to
some ex tent, of a dy namic per son al ity. This im por tant fig ure is Nikolai Koliada
who runs a ma jor the ater, or ga nizes sig nif i cant the ater fes ti vals for new works,
and teaches up com ing play wrights and di rec tors and ac tors. Jointly these young
Со ци о ло гия: те о рия, ме то ды, мар ке тинг, 2018, 1 147
The Muse of Urban Delirium: The Arts and Social Change in Transformational Cities
1 A word that refers to a traditional South African dish. It literally means “stew”.
2 The editor-in-chief of “Ural” literary magazine during 1980–1999.
3 In-yer-face (“in your face”) is a slang expression used to describe something (e. g.,
advertising, performance) done in such a way that it shocks people.
play wrights and di rec tors pro duced a hard-edged new the ater that put a spot -
light on some of post-So viet Rus sia’s sharp est edges.
Unsurprisingly, the “New Rus sian Drama” move ment has not been to ev ery -
one’s taste. Rus sian na tion al ists com plain about its as so ci a tion with Brit ain, and
de plore its fas ci na tion with sex, vi o lence, de prav ity, and gen eral chernukha, or
filth. In deed, this genre of lit er a ture has faced in creas ing ob sta cles in re cent years
fol low ing the con sol i da tion of Vladi mir Putin’s re gime.
But such crit i cism misses a per haps larger truth. Many of the au thors and
plays cat e go rized as con sti tut ing the “New Rus sian Drama” move ment seek to re -
veal more than the pa thol o gies of their own so ci ety. Their char ac ters re tain a core
hu man dig nity in the face of the most de grad ing cir cum stances. Plays are in fused
by a larger spir i tu al ity, in mock ing con trast to the events tak ing place on stage.
This un der ly ing at ti tude of pro found hu man ity be neath the sur face hor ror of
post-So viet life at tracted au di ences back to the the aters. Chernukha — filth —
served a larger end than just to shock. It cre ated mo ments for re demp tion.
The ten sions around Putin’s re vived pres i dency ex ploded in Yekaterinburg
when Koliada sup ported Putin’s can di dacy. As that ep i sode re vealed, the Rus -
sian the at ri cal com mu nity is part of larger Rus sian so ci ety and re flects some of
the same di vi sions as so ci ety at large. More tell ingly, a num ber of Rus sian cul -
tural pol i cies — in clud ing bans on ob scen ity in ar tis tic works, lim its on non-state
fund ing for cul tural in sti tu tions, and the growth of a xe no pho bic na tion al ism —
marked the end of an era.
John Freed man, for mer the ater critic for “The Mos cow News” and a ma jor
chron i cler of post-So viet Rus sian the ater, per haps cap tured the mo ment best
when he ob served: “The com mu nity of the ater writ ers is un der at tack; key val ues
and as pi ra tions no lon ger unite it… A break has oc curred, and now we wait to see
what co mes next” [Freed man, 2014]. But what ever that next step will be it is cer -
tain to have been shaped by the ex cit ing in no va tions of the “New Rus sian Drama”
move ment be fore; the originations of play wrights strug gling to make sense of the
changes in city life tak ing place all around them.
Making Urban Diversity Work
More than two de cades ago, in 1993, the Har vard gov ern ment pro fes sor Rob -
ert Putnam pub lished his now-clas sic study “Mak ing De moc racy Work: Civic
Tra di tions in Mod ern It aly” [Putnam et al., 1993]. Try ing to an swer the ques tion
of why North ern Ital ian cit ies had de vel oped vi brant civic tra di tions, which came
to sup port the growth of dem o cratic in sti tu tions, but South ern Ital ian cit ies had
not, Putnam was sur prised to find a strong cor re la tion be tween civic health and
cho ral so ci et ies1.
Putnam mas ter fully ar gued that cho ral so ci et ies emerged from the same
broad res er voir of so cial cap i tal that is re quired to sup port civic vi tal ity. Ap pear -
ing just as coun tries through out the for mer com mu nist world were strug gling to
cre ate new de moc ra cies, Putnam’s work be came some thing of a Holy Grail for
pro mot ers of a new po lit i cal or der. The prob lem, how ever, was that Putnam’s
148 Со ци о ло гия: те о рия, ме то ды, мар ке тинг, 2018, 1
Blair A. Ruble
1 Organized bodies of amateur singers who meet regularly to perform choral music.
work failed to suf fi ciently ex plain how such civic vir tue and so cial cap i tal could
be cre ated in the first place.
Per haps hard-nosed de moc racy ad vo cates pur su ing mea sur able ad vances to -
ward in sti tu tion ally bounded rep re sen ta tive in sti tu tions con sid ered mu sic lit tle
more than white noise. If so, they may have missed part of a so lu tion to Putnam’s
seem ingly un an swered chal lenge. Song, af ter all, has bound hu mans to gether for
mil len nia, and the so cial in ter ac tion re quired to cre ate vo cal beauty that can be
trans ferred to other ac tiv i ties. Cho ral so ci et ies are not just a re flec tion of civic
health, but may in re al ity be cen tral to its or i gins.
The sig nif i cance of so cial cap i tal for civic well-be ing is more than the o ret i cal
con jec ture. A grow ing body of ev i dence drawn from the re sponses to such re cent
di sas ters as Hur ri cane Ka trina and Superstorm Sandy sug gests that those com -
mu ni ties which have the high est stores of so cial cap i tal be fore suf fer ing a com mu -
nal trauma re cover most quickly fol low ing both hu man-made and nat u ral di sas -
ters. This cap i tal does not re quire deep knowl edge of one an other — like a ca sual
so cia bil ity that al lows neigh bors and col leagues to turn to one an other in times of
cri sis.
The per form ing arts en cour age just such a ge nial ity by bring ing to gether au -
di ences and per form ers to share a mo ment of con viv i al ity. They open path ways
for out sid ers to be come in sid ers, add ing new cre ative en ergy to cit ies. They con -
vert ur ban de lir ium into an as set, as can be seen for each of the cit ies and per form -
ing arts ex plored here.
The dy na mism of 17th-cen tury Na ples and Osaka re flected the en ergy of new
po lit i cal re gimes and the broad en ing of com merce. Their wealth drew tens of
thou sands of mi grants from the sur round ing coun try side into town and cre ated
new so cial classes. Op era and ka buki re sponded to the de sires of the am bi tious ris -
ing nou veaux bourgeoisies as they dreamed of as cend ing ever higher in the so cial
hi er ar chy. The broad com e dies of op era buffa were sung in the lan guage of the
street by char ac ters lifted out of ev ery day life. Ka buki was still closer to the
ground, hav ing orig i nated in the Tokugawa sex trade. Both op era and ka buki
were in tensely ur ban in their char ac ter from the very be gin ning. Op era, of course,
ini tially be gan at court, of ten in small towns. It se cured its place in Eu ro pean cul -
ture in the grand cit ies of the era — first in Ven ice and Na ples; and later in Lon -
don, Paris, and Vi enna. Ka buki, from its ear li est per for mances in Kyoto, al ways
was about pleas ing au di ences of towns peo ple.
New York and Bue nos Ai res of a cen tury ago were the very def i ni tions of ur -
ban in ten sity, as tens of thou sands of im mi grants ar rived from across Eu rope.
These out sid ers chal lenged as sump tions about ev ery as pect of daily life. In com -
ing to the New World, they joined so ci et ies pred i cated on in te gra tion. Cul ture
through out the Amer i cas for a cou ple of cen tu ries be fore had formed around lo -
cally dis tinc tive blends of na tive, Af ri can, and Eu ro pean el e ments — a pro cess
height ened in the ur ban pres sure cook ers of Bue nos Ai res and New York.
20th-cen tury Cape Town and Yekaterinburg were prod ucts of co lo nial pro -
jects united by some of the harsh est so cial and po lit i cal ex per i men ta tion of the
20th cen tury. Be cause these cit ies’ per form ing arts were set in re gimes in which
in sid ers sought to keep out sid ers per ma nently un der heel, per for mances gave
voice to those who oth er wise could not speak. In both cit ies, jazz and rock per -
form ers, and the ater di rec tors and play wrights, ut tered the un ut ter able. They
cre ated pub lic spaces where those who were to be kept apart none the less came to -
Со ци о ло гия: те о рия, ме то ды, мар ке тинг, 2018, 1 149
The Muse of Urban Delirium: The Arts and Social Change in Transformational Cities
gether. As col lec tive ex pres sions, the per form ing arts en abled com mu nity mem -
bers to im pose their own in ner world on a cityscape of im mense com plex ity.
The con tra dic tions of ur ban life are a well spring of in ven tion, con vert ing the
sud den and dis con cert ing jux ta po si tion of op po sites — of high and low cul ture,
good and evil, for eign and do mes tic — into an as set that en riches the cityscape.
“The Muse of Ur ban De lir ium” draws on his to ries of the per form ing arts — op era,
dance, the ater, and mu sic — to pro vide in sight into the cre ativ ity of ur ban life.
They tell the story of mo ments when the ur ban ka lei do scope has turned with
such de lir i ous speed that the city has be come the muse for many among their
most cre ative in hab it ants.
References
Chernow, R. (2004). Alexander Hamilton. New York: Penguin Press.
Freedman, J. (2014). New Era Looms After Golden Age of “New Drama”. The Moscow
Times. Retrieved from https://themoscowtimes.com/articles/new-era-looms-after-golden-
age-of-new-drama-37890.
Hall, P. (1998). Cities in Civilization. New York: Pantheon Books.
Koolhaas, R. (1978). Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan. New
York: Oxford University Press.
Montalbán, M. V. (2003). The Buenos Aires Quintet. Trans. Nick Caistor. London: Ser -
pent’s Tail.
Mumford, L. (1961). The City in History. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
Putnam, R. D., Leonardi, R., Nanetti, R. Y. (1993). Making Democracy Work: Civic
Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Ruble, B. A. (2017). The Muse of Urban Delirium: How the Performing Arts Paradoxically
Transform Conflict-Ridden Cities into Centers of Cultural Innovation. Washington, DC: New
Academia Publishing.
Simon, J. (1988). Theater, New York Magazine, November 7.
Received 07.02.2018
150 Со ци о ло гия: те о рия, ме то ды, мар ке тинг, 2018, 1
Blair A. Ruble
|
| id | nasplib_isofts_kiev_ua-123456789-182177 |
| institution | Digital Library of Periodicals of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine |
| issn | 1563-4426 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-12-07T18:46:08Z |
| publishDate | 2018 |
| publisher | Iнститут соціології НАН України |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | Ruble, B.A. 2021-12-16T16:29:04Z 2021-12-16T16:29:04Z 2018 The Muse of Urban Delirium: The Arts and Social Change in Transformational Cities / B.A. Ruble // Социология: теория, методы, маркетинг. — 2018. — № 1. — С. 136-150. — англ. 1563-4426 https://nasplib.isofts.kiev.ua/handle/123456789/182177 394; 793.3 It is argued that cities are shaped by the con frontation of reality and values as mitigated by the arts. More specifically, residents at the height of deep, profound, and rapid social, political, and economic change struggle to define and redefine their own identities. They often do so by creating new artistic forms which, over time, become respectable as they themselves move into the mainstream. The article explores moments when the performing arts helped new social movers define who they are in six different cities on five continents inventing new forms of opera, theater, music, and dance. These cities shared a protean drive unleashed by their rising social classes which were struggling to define their own distinct identities within the very turmoil their own emergence had created. en Iнститут соціології НАН України Социология: теория, методы, маркетинг Статьи The Muse of Urban Delirium: The Arts and Social Change in Transformational Cities Article published earlier |
| spellingShingle | The Muse of Urban Delirium: The Arts and Social Change in Transformational Cities Ruble, B.A. Статьи |
| title | The Muse of Urban Delirium: The Arts and Social Change in Transformational Cities |
| title_full | The Muse of Urban Delirium: The Arts and Social Change in Transformational Cities |
| title_fullStr | The Muse of Urban Delirium: The Arts and Social Change in Transformational Cities |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Muse of Urban Delirium: The Arts and Social Change in Transformational Cities |
| title_short | The Muse of Urban Delirium: The Arts and Social Change in Transformational Cities |
| title_sort | muse of urban delirium: the arts and social change in transformational cities |
| topic | Статьи |
| topic_facet | Статьи |
| url | https://nasplib.isofts.kiev.ua/handle/123456789/182177 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT rubleba themuseofurbandeliriumtheartsandsocialchangeintransformationalcities AT rubleba museofurbandeliriumtheartsandsocialchangeintransformationalcities |