The Dancing Skeleton sounds like the name of a Sherlock Holmes mystery by Arthur Conan Doyle, but it’s the title of the next talk from the Greenwich Industrial History Society.

Dr Jeremy Brooker will be talking on Tuesday evening, 11 March, about John Beale and the Dancing Skeleton.

The Dancing Skeleton was one of number of pioneering optical devices invented by John Beale, son of a distinguished family of Greenwich engineers.

In the talk, based on his recent book The Magic Lantern Dancer, Jeremy will explore this work and its significance in the history of the moving image.

Jeremy is an independent researcher into various aspects of magic lantern performance practice. He completed his PhD through Birkbeck College, University of London under the supervision of Prof Ian Christie.

His particular areas of interest are the use of music and live action in conjunction with screen-based images; science as spectacle; stage illusion; and optical magic.

He has undertaken a number of site specific studies, notably on Victorian institutions, the Royal Polytechnic Institution, the Adelaide Gallery, the Royal Panopticon, the Royal Institution, and the Academy of Music in Philadelphia.

He is a founding member and a former chair and current research officer for the Magic Lantern Society.

HOW TO REGISTER

You can book a place already by emailing greenwichindustrial@gmail.com with the subject line “GIHS Dancing Skeleton talk” and we will send you Zoom log-in details just before the talk starts.