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fertility rites

(Encyclopedia)fertility rites, magico-religious ceremonies to insure an abundance of food and the birth of children. The rites, expressed through dances, prayers, incantations, and sacred dramas, seek to control th...

Valois, Dame Ninette de

(Encyclopedia)Valois, Dame Ninette de vălˈwä [key], 1898–2001, English ballet director, b. County Wicklow, Ireland. She was originally named Edris Stannus. After attaining distinction as a dancer, most notably...

Porter, Cole

(Encyclopedia)Porter, Cole, 1891–1964, American composer and lyricist, b. Peru, Ind., grad. Yale, 1913. Porter's witty, sophisticated lyrics and his affecting melodies place him high in the ranks of American comp...

Powers, Richard

(Encyclopedia)Powers, Richard, 1957–, American novelist, b. Evanston, Ill., grad. Univ of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana (B.A., 1978; M.A, 1980). He taught at his alma mater from 1996 to 2013, when he joined Stanford...

kagu

(Encyclopedia)kagu käˈgo͞o [key], common name for a long-legged, heronlike bird, Rhynochetos jubatus. It has a loose, gray plumage with darker bandings; broad, rounded wings marked with white, black, and red; an...

Smetana, Bedřich

(Encyclopedia)Smetana, Bedřich bĕˈdərzhĭkh smĕˈtänä [key], 1824–84, Czech composer, creator of a national style in Czech music. He studied in Pilsen and in Prague, where in 1848, with the encouragement o...

Yogyakarta

(Encyclopedia)Yogyakarta jōkˌ– [key], city (1990 pop. 412,059), S Java, Indonesia, at the foot of volcanic Mt. Merapi, capital of the special region of Yogyakarta (1990 pop. 2,912,611), a former sultanate. It i...

Čáslavská, Věra

(Encyclopedia)Čáslavská, Věra, 1942–2016, Czechoslovak gymnast, b. Prague. Čáslavská revolutionized a formerly dance-based sport with her athleticism and panache, winning 22 international titles (seven Oly...

minstrel show

(Encyclopedia)minstrel show, stage entertainment by white performers made up as blacks. Thomas Dartmouth Rice, who gave (c.1828) the first solo performance in blackface and introduced the song-and-dance act Jim Cro...

Knussen, Oliver

(Encyclopedia)Knussen, Oliver (Stuart Oliver Knussen), 1952–2018, British composer, conductor, and teacher, b. Glasgow, Scotland. A musical prodigy, he began to compose at age 6 and studied with, among others, Gu...