@book{discovery10139207, month = {December}, address = {London, UK}, note = {This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher's terms and conditions.}, publisher = {Bloomsbury}, title = {Performing Femininity: Woman as Performer in Early Russian Cinema}, year = {2016}, url = {https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/performing-femininity-9781784531591/}, abstract = {Oriental dancers, ballerinas, actresses and opera singers the figure of the female performer is ubiquitous in the cinema of pre-Revolutionary Russia. From the first feature film, Romashkov's Stenka Razin (1908), through the sophisticated melodramas of the 1910s, to Viskovsky's The Last Tango (1918), made shortly before the pre-Revolutionary film industry was dismantled by the new Soviet government, the female performer remains central. In this groundbreaking new study, Rachel Morley argues that early Russian film-makers used the character of the female performer to explore key contemporary concerns from changing conceptions of femininity and the emergence of the so-called New Woman, to broader questions concerning gender identity. Morley also reveals that the film-makers repeatedly used this archetype of femininity to experiment with cinematic technology and develop a specific cinematic language."}, author = {Morley, R} }