The protagonists in James Baldwin’s 1957 short story “Sonny’s Blues” are constantly smiling and laughing. The story’s narrator notices these gestures and utilizes them to grasp at clarity when clarity seems out of reach. This article examines the narrator’s focus on this duo of facial expressions which reliably denote positive emotion. The relationship we maintain between our smiles and our laughter structures many of the narrator’s interactions with the story’s hero. More though, this relationship between smiles, laughter, and a kind of joy resembles the relationship Baldwin has described between the blues and the world this genre of music depicts.
absolutely central positions in the modern Irish dramatic canon. Friel has continued in the manner sketched by Kilroy, as a ‘highly formal artist’,13 working with themes mapped out in his earlier work of history, memory, forms of identity and exile, and verbal and nonverbal communication. Indeed, for Friel the period is bounded by two major plays, Dancing at Lughnasa (1990) and The Home Place (2005), which frame a number of new pieces – Wonderful Tennessee (1993), Molly Sweeney (1994), Give Me Your Answer, Do! (1997), Afterplay (2002), Performances (2003) – and adaptations
. Performing Medicine employs visual artists, dance and theatre practitioners to work with medical professionals, exploring clinical experiences, in order to develop new ways to resolve communication issues. These interdisciplinary teams use the circle of care model to improve ‘nonverbal communication, self-care, spatial awareness, and appreciation of the person with an emphasis on understanding the perspectives and contexts of others’ (Willson and Jaye, 2017 : 643). Similarly, Reeves and Neilson ( 2018 ) discuss a project that used forum theatre to present interactive
specifically designed for ‘retarded’ children were thought to be unsuitable for the study because they ‘do not cover in sufficient detail the development of … comprehension and use of both verbal and nonverbal communication’. Likewise, ‘checklists’ for autism and childhood schizophrenia were considered unhelpful because they were ‘far too selective to be
impairment in reciprocal social interaction’, ‘B. Qualitative impairment in verbal and nonverbal communication, and in imaginative activity’ and ‘C. Markedly restricted repertoire of activities and interests’. Each part of the triad was then elaborated with sixteen item descriptions and illustrations: for example, ‘qualitative impairment in social