Rope-dancing
Rope-dancing is the general art and act of performing on or with a rope. There are a variety of forms and techniques which have been used throughout history. These include: * Chinese jump rope – in which a circular rope is used to make patterns in a technique which resembles hopscotch and the cat's cradle * Rope-sliding – in which the performer slides down a tight rope or cable somewhat like a modern zip line * Skipping – in which the performer repeatedly jumps over a swinging rope * Slackwire – in which the rope or wire is slack and so a swinging technique is needed * Tightrope walking – in which the rope or wire is tight and a balancing technique is used History Rope-dancers were famous among ancient Greeks and Romans. The Greeks called a rope-dancer/rope-walker as schoenobates (σχοινοβάτης) and kalobates (καλοβάτης) and the Romans, funambulus. In Herculaneum there are a series of paintings representing rope-dancing. Germanicus and the emperor ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tightrope Walking
Tightrope walking, also called funambulism, is the skill of walking along a thin wire or rope. It has a long tradition in various countries and is commonly associated with the circus. Other skills similar to tightrope walking include slack rope walking and slacklining. Types Tightwire is the skill of maintaining balance while walking along a tensioned wire between two points. It can be done either using a balancing tool (umbrella, fan, balance pole, etc.) or "freehand", using only one's body to maintain balance. Typically, tightwire performances either include dance or object manipulation. Object manipulation acts include a variety of props in their acts, such as clubs, rings, hats, or canes. Tightwire performers have even used wheelbarrows with passengers, ladders, and animals in their act. The technique to maintain balance is to keep the performer's centre of mass above their support point—usually their feet. Highwire is a form of tightwire walking but performed at much ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jacob Hall Van Oost
Jacob, later known as Israel, is a Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions. He first appears in the Torah, where he is described in the Book of Genesis as a son of Isaac and Rebecca. Accordingly, alongside his older fraternal twin brother Esau, Jacob's paternal grandparents are Abraham and Sarah and his maternal grandfather is Bethuel, whose wife is not mentioned. He is said to have bought Esau's birthright and, with his mother's help, deceived his aging father to bless him instead of Esau. Then, following a severe drought in his homeland Canaan, Jacob and his descendants migrated to neighbouring Egypt through the efforts of his son Joseph, who had become a confidant of the pharaoh. After dying in Egypt at the age of 147, he is supposed to have been buried in the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron. Per the Hebrew Bible, Jacob's progeny were beget by four women: his wives (and maternal cousins) Leah and Rachel; and his concubines Bilhah and Zilpah. His sons were, in order of their b ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Terence
Publius Terentius Afer (; – ), better known in English as Terence (), was a playwright during the Roman Republic. He was the author of six Roman comedy, comedies based on Greek comedy, Greek originals by Menander or Apollodorus of Carystus. All six of Terence's plays survive complete and were originally produced between 166–160 BC. According to ancient authors, Terence was born in Carthage and was brought to Rome as a slave, where he gained an education and his freedom; around the age of 25, Terence is said to have made a voyage to the east in search of inspiration for his plays, where he died either of disease in Greece, or by shipwreck on the return voyage. However, Terence's traditional biography is often thought to consist of speculation by ancient scholars who lived too long after Terence to have access to reliable facts about his life. Terence's plays quickly became standard school texts. He ultimately secured a place as one of the four authors taught to all grammar p ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Circus Skills
Circus skills are a group of disciplines that have been performed as entertainment in circus, carnival, sideshow, busking, variety, vaudeville, or music hall shows. Most circus skills are still being performed today. Many are also practiced by non-performers as a hobby. Circus schools and instructors use various systems of categorization to group circus skills by type. Systems that have attempted to formally organize circus skills into pragmatic teaching groupings include the Gurevich system"The Classification of Circus Techniques" by Hovey Burgess. ''The Drama Review'': TDR, Vol. 14344425Aleeyah18, No. 1, Popular Entertainments (Mar., 1974), pp. 65-70. doi:10.2307/1144863. (the basis of the Russian Circus School's curriculum) and the Hovey Burgess system. Circus skills * Acrobalance * Acrobatics * Acro dance * Adagio * Aerial hammock * Aerial hoop * Aerial pole * Aerial silk * Aerial straps * Artistic cycling * Balancing * Banquine * Baton twirling * Buffoonery * Bu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Harry Sandbach
Francis Henry Sandbach (23 February 1903 – 18 September 1991), generally known as Harry Sandbach, was a British academic, who held the position of the Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow and Senior Tutor of Trinity College. Early years Francis Henry Sandbach was born in Edgbaston, the elder son of Professor Francis Edward Sandbach, then a lecturer in German at the University of Birmingham, and his wife Ethel Bywater, a teacher. He was educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham, where he became school captain, and attended Trinity College, Cambridge, where he held the Browne and Craven scholarships in 1923, and was awarded the Chancellor's Medal and the Charles Oldham Classical Scholarship in 1925. Career After graduating, he was appointed to an assistant lectureship at the University of Manchester from 1926 to 1929. In 1927 he was awarded a fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge, and in 1929 left Manchester to take up a lectureship at the c ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Chatto & Windus
Chatto & Windus is an imprint of Penguin Random House that was formerly an independent book publishing company founded in London in 1855 by John Camden Hotten. Following Hotten's death, the firm would reorganize under the names of his business partner Andrew Chatto and poet William Edward Windus. The company was purchased by Random House in 1987 and is now a sub-imprint of Vintage Books within the Penguin UK division. History The firm developed out of the publishing business of John Camden Hotten, founded in 1855. After his death in 1873, it was sold to Hotten's junior partner Andrew Chatto (1841–1913), who took on as a partner the poet William Edward Windus (1827–1910), son of the patron of J. M. W. Turner, Benjamin Godfrey Windus (1790–1867). Chatto & Windus published Mark Twain, W. S. Gilbert, Wilkie Collins, H. G. Wells, Wyndham Lewis, Richard Aldington, Frederick Rolfe (as Fr. Rolfe), Aldous Huxley, Samuel Beckett, the "unfinished" novel ''Weir of Hermiston'' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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William Hone
William Hone (3 June 1780 – 8 November 1842) was an English writer, satirist and bookseller. His victorious court battle against government censorship in 1817 marked a turning point in the fight for British press freedom. Biography Hone has been described as one of the fathers of modern media. According to Associate Professor Kyle Grimes from the University of Alabama, "William Hone arguably did more than any other writer, printer or publisher to shape British popular print culture in the early decades of the nineteenth century." Hone was born at Bath on 3 June 1780, one of three children to William Hone Senior (born aHomewood Farmin Ripley, Surrey) and Francis Stalwell. William's only surviving brotherJoseph Hone(1784–1861) was a Supreme Court judge in Tasmania, Australia. William was an inquisitive child, whose father taught him to read from the Bible. For a number of years William attended a small school run by Dame Bettridge, to whom he was very close. In 1783 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Joseph Strutt (engraver And Antiquary)
Joseph Strutt (27 October 1749 – 16 October 1802) was an English engraver, artist, antiquary, and writer. He is today most significant as the earliest and "most important single figure in the investigation of the costume of the past", making him "an influential but totally neglected figure in the history of art in Britain", according to Sir Roy Strong. Life and work Childhood Strutt was born at Springfield Mill in Chelmsford, Essex, the youngest son of Thomas Strutt and his wife Elizabeth (daughter of John Ingold, miller, of Woodham Walter, near Maldon, Essex) – the mill belonged to his father, a wealthy miller. When he was little more than a year old, his father died, leaving his mother to bring up him and his brother John – the latter, a year or two older, went on to become a physician in Westminster, London. Strutt was educated at King Edward VI Grammar school, Chelmsford (where there is a house named after him), and at the age of fourteen was apprenticed to the e ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Indian Rope Trick
The Indian rope trick is a magic trick said to have been performed in and around India during the 19th century. Sometimes described as "the world’s greatest illusion", it reputedly involved a magician, a length of rope, and one or more boy assistants. In the 1990s the trick was said by some historians to be a hoax perpetrated in 1890 by John Wilkie of the ''Chicago Tribune'' newspaper. Magic historian Peter Lamont has argued that there are no accurate references to the trick predating 1890, and that later stage magic performances of the trick were inspired by Wilkie's account. Lamont, Peter. (2005). ''The Rise of the Indian Rope Trick: How a Spectacular Hoax Became History''. Abacus. pp. 80-95, 208. There are old accounts from the 9th century (by Adi Shankara), the 14th century (by Ibn Battuta), and the 17th century (by the Mughal Emperor Jahangir) of versions of the trick, but this is denied by Lamont as the accounts described are different from the "classic" Indian rope tr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Abseiling
Abseiling ( ; ), also known as rappelling ( ; ), is the controlled descent of a steep slope, such as a rock face, by moving down a rope. When abseiling, the person descending controls their own movement down a static or fixed rope, in contrast to Belaying, lowering off, in which the rope attached to the person descending is paid out by their belayer. Description The technique is used by Climbing, climbers, mountaineers, Caving, cavers, Canyoning, canyoners, search and rescue and rope access technicians to descend cliffs or slopes when they are too steep or dangerous to descend without protection. Many climbers use this technique to protect established Anchor (climbing), anchors from damage. Rope access technicians also use this as a method to access difficult-to-reach areas from above for various industrial applications like maintenance, construction, inspection and welding. To descend safely, abseilers use a variety of techniques to increase the friction on the rope to t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hecyra
''Hecyra'' (''The Mother-in-Law'') is a comedic Latin play by the early Roman playwright Terence. The story concerns a young man, Pamphilus, who has a girlfriend, the courtesan Bacchis, but is forced by his father to marry a neighbour's daughter Philumena. Before the wedding took place Philumena was raped by an unknown man. When a baby is born, Pamphilus at first disowns Philumena, but in the end it turns out that he himself is the father of the baby and husband and wife are reconciled. Much of the play deals with the distress which Pamphilus's behaviour causes himself and his own and Philumena's parents. A comedic element is provided by a lazy gossip-hungry slave, Parmeno, who is made to run around on errands and is kept in the dark about what is happening. The mother-in-law in the title is Pamphilus's mother Sostrata, who is falsely accused of unkindness towards Philumena; but Pamphilus's own mother-in-law Myrrina also has an important role. The second of Terence's plays to be ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Galba
Galba ( ; born Servius Sulpicius Galba; 24 December 3 BC – 15 January AD 69) was Roman emperor, ruling for 7 months from 8 June AD 68 to 15 January 69. He was the first emperor in the Year of the Four Emperors and assumed the throne following Emperor Nero's suicide. Born into a wealthy family, Galba held at various times the positions of praetor, consul, and governor of the provinces of Gallia Aquitania, Germania Superior, and Africa during the first half of the first century AD. He retired from his positions during the latter part of Claudius' reign (with the advent of Agrippina the Younger), but Nero later granted him the governorship of Hispania. Taking advantage of the defeat of Vindex's rebellion and Nero's suicide, he became emperor with the support of the Praetorian Guard. Galba's physical weakness and general apathy led to his rule being dominated by favorites. Unable to gain popularity with the people or maintain the support of the Praetorian Guard, Galba was mur ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |