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See Cinema Before Film The Magic Lantern July 8 & 9, 2008 at 7pm At the height of their huge 19th-century popularity, magic lantern shows were pure mass media entertainments—polished instruments through which news, rhetoric and visual delights were presented before public audiences in large halls. As skilled showmen, professional lanternists realized their dreams of storytelling through projected moving pictures, music and sound effects. East meets West in this program illustrating the range, beauty and form of this precursor to movies as we know them today. Highlights include a Victorian show from The American Magic-Lantern Theater, a talk on the early history and artistic evolution of lantern imagery with pre-cinema scholar Deac Rossell, and the New York premiere of Tokyo’s Minwa-za Company on their inaugural U.S. tour. The Minwa-za Company of Tokyo NY Premiere Tue Jul 8: 7:00pm Spirit of ‘76 screening with The Magic Lantern and Moving Pictures Wed Jul 9: 7pm The Minwa-za Company of Tokyo Over two hundred years ago, the rear-projected Japanese magic lantern spectacle called Utsushi-e blended the elements of moving images, illusion, light, color, music, storytelling and art, thus paving the way for early animation, manga and contemporary anime. Tokyo’s Minwa-za Company recreates the technology as well as the performances, which were based on popular stories from Kabuki, Bunraku, and other forms of Edo entertainment. Four lanternists and three musicians unveil this early multimedia to New York audiences. Spirit of ‘76 Travel back in time with the boisterous revelry of an authentic 1890s visual extravaganza projected on a full screen. See America’s history dramatized in story, comedy and song through a combination of projected pictures and live performers. Starring Terry Borton, a fourth-generation lanternist and author of American Magic-Lantern Entertainment Before the Movies: The Nation's First Great Screen Artist, Joseph Boggs Beale. With Valerie Nicolosi and Nancy Stewart. The Magic Lantern and Moving Pictures From the first lantern slides evoking movement in the 1660s through the elaborate multiple lantern shows of the 1860s, magic lantern projections established the fundamental repertoire that was absorbed by filmmaking after the turn of the century. This presentation explores the way in which an optical curiosity turned into an omnipresent part of modern life. Deac Rossell is the author of Laterna Magica / Magic Lantern / A History Vol. 1.