pageant
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pageant,
modern dramatic spectacle or procession celebrating a special occasion or an event in the history of a locality. In medieval times the word pageant had meant the wagon or the movable stage on which one scene of a mystery or miracle playmiracle playor mystery play,
form of medieval drama that came from dramatization of the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church. It developed from the 10th to the 16th cent., reaching its height in the 15th cent.
..... Click the link for more information. was performed. The pageant was built on wheels and consisted of two rooms, the lower one being used as a dressing room and the upper used as a stage. The word also referred to the complex wooden machine-structures built for the Tudor masquemasque,
courtly form of dramatic spectacle, popular in England in the first half of the 17th cent. The masque developed from the early 16th-century disguising, or mummery, in which disguised guests bearing presents would break into a festival and then join with their hosts in a
..... Click the link for more information. . The modern form of the pageant came into general use in England and America since the production, in 1905, of L. N. Parker's Sherborne pageant in England. Pageants include such celebrations as the Mardi Gras and annual local festivals.
Pageant
a term used to designate a movable stage in the medieval theater used in presenting mysteries, miracle plays, and dramatic processions.
The pageant was a large wagon consisting of two levels. On the lower level the actors changed their costumes; on the upper level, which was provided with a curtain and primitive scenery, a scene or act from a play was presented. The pageant then moved on to a new site and the same scene was played again before a new group of spectators. Another wagon appeared, on whose stage the play was continued. The scenes followed one another in strict accordance with the play’s plot.
Pageants were popular in England and in other European countries. In the early 20th century the term was applied in Great Britain and the USA to theatrical performances using a movable stage.
REFERENCES
Gvozdev, A., and A. Piotrovskii. Istoriia evropeiskogo teatra. Moscow-Leningrad, 1931. Pages 415–62.Parker, A. Pageants: Their Presentation and Production. London, 1954.