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Hopi

(Encyclopedia)Hopi hōˈpē [key], group of the Pueblo, formerly called Moki, or Moqui. They speak the Hopi language, which belongs to the Uto-Aztecan branch of the Aztec-Tanoan linguistic stock, at all their puebl...

commedia dell'arte

(Encyclopedia)commedia dell'arte kōm-māˈdēä dĕl-lärˈtā [key], popular form of comedy employing improvised dialogue and masked characters that flourished in Italy from the 16th to the 18th cent. The impac...

circus

(Encyclopedia)circus [Lat.,=ring, circle], historically, the arena associated with the horse and chariot races and athletic contests known in ancient Rome as the Circensian games. The Roman circus was a round or ov...

Rodin, Auguste

(Encyclopedia)Rodin, Auguste ōgüstˈ rōdăNˈ [key], 1840–1917, French sculptor, b. Paris. He began his art study at 14 in the Petite École and in the school of Antoine Barye, earning his living by working fo...

Newport, cities, United States

(Encyclopedia)Newport. 1 City (1990 pop. 18,871), seat of Campbell co., N Ky., on the Ohio River opposite Cincinnati and on the east bank of the Licking River opposite Covington; laid out 1791, inc. as a city 1835....

Rauschenberg, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Rauschenberg, Robert rouˈshənbûrgˌ [key], 1925–2008, American painter, b. Port Arthur, Tex., as Milton Ernest Rauschenberg. He studied at the Kansas City Art Institute, with Josef Albers at Blac...

Balinese music

(Encyclopedia)Balinese music represents, to a large extent, a survival of the pre-Islamic music of Java. It was taken to Bali by Hindu Javanese in the 15th cent. and uses the tonal systems of Javanese music, of whi...

oratorio

(Encyclopedia)oratorio ôrətôrˈēō [key], musical composition employing chorus, orchestra, and soloists and usually, but not necessarily, a setting of a sacred libretto without stage action or scenery. The imme...

Stoppard, Tom

(Encyclopedia)Stoppard, Tom, 1937–, English playwright, b. Zlín, Czechoslovakia (now in the Czech Republic), as Tomas Straussler. During his childhood he and his family moved to Singapore, later (1946) settling ...

Cage, John Milton, Jr.

(Encyclopedia)Cage, John Milton Jr., 1912–92, American composer, b. Los Angeles. A leading figure in the musical avant-garde from the late 1930s, he attended Pomona...