Performing arts

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Not to be confused with Performance art.
Two dancers leaping
Indian Bharatanatyam dance is often accompanied by music
Part of a series on
Performing arts

The performing arts are

art objects
. Performing arts include a range of disciplines which are performed in front of a live audience, including theatre, music, and dance.

circus skills date to at least Ancient Egypt
. Many performing arts are performed professionally. Performance can be in purpose-built buildings, such as theatres and opera houses, on open air stages at festivals, on stages in tents such as circuses or on the street.

Live performances before an audience are a form of entertainment. The development of audio and video recording has allowed for private consumption of the performing arts. The performing arts often aims to express one's emotions and feelings.[2]

Performers

Performing artists in Kyoto, Japan
"Performer" and "Performers" redirect here. For other uses, see Performer (disambiguation).

Artists who participate in performing arts in front of an audience are called performers. Examples of these include

stage makeup, stage lighting
, and sound.

A picture of a Theatre, a place to showcase performances to audience.
McKenna Theatre Stage

Types

Performing arts may include dance, music, opera, theatre and musical theatre,

circus arts, stand up comedy, improv, professional wrestling and performance art
.

There is also a specialized form of fine art, in which the artists perform their work live to an audience. This is called

props. Dance was often referred to as a plastic art during the modern dance era.[3]

Theatre

Main article: Theatre

Theatre is the branch of performing arts concerned with acting out stories in front of an audience, using a combination of speech, gesture, music, dance, sound, and spectacle. Any one or more of these elements is considered performing arts. In addition to the standard narrative dialogue style of plays, theater takes such forms as plays, musicals, opera, ballet,

mummers' plays, improvisational theatre, comedy, pantomime, and non-conventional or contemporary forms like postmodern theatre, postdramatic theatre
, or performance art.

Dance

Main article: Dance
Scene from the ballet Les Sylphides

In the context of performing arts, dance generally refers to human

artistic, and moral constraints and range from functional movement (such as folk dance) to codified, virtuoso techniques such as ballet.[4]

There is one another modern form of dance that emerged in 19th- 20th century with the name of

Nietzsche's idea of "supreme mind in free mind".[5]

Dance is a powerful impulse, but the art of dance is that impulse channeled by skillful performers into something that becomes intensely expressive and that may delight spectators who feel no wish to dance themselves. These two concepts of the art of dance—dance as a powerful impulse and dance as a skillfully choreographed art practiced largely by a professional few—are the two most important connecting ideas running through any consideration of the subject. In dance, the connection between the two concepts is stronger than in some other arts, and neither can exist without the other.[4]

Choreography is the art of making dances, and the person who practices this art is called a choreographer.

Music

Main article: Music

Music is an art form which combines pitch, rhythm, and dynamic to create sound. It can be performed using a variety of instruments and styles and is divided into genres such as folk, jazz, hip hop, pop, and rock, etc. As an art form, music can occur in live or recorded formats, and can be planned or improvised.

As music is a protean art, it easily coordinates with words for songs as physical movements do in dance. Moreover, it has a capability of shaping human behaviors as it impacts our emotions.[6]

History

Sophocles

Western performing arts

Main article:
Western art history
See also: Antitheatricality

Starting in the 6th century BC, the

Hellenistic period
began the widespread use of comedy.

However, by the 6th century AD, Western performing arts had been largely ended as the

Church
in celebration of holy days and other important events.

Renaissance

Main article: Renaissance

In the 15th century performing arts, along with the arts in general, saw a revival as the Renaissance began in Italy and spread throughout Europe plays, some of which incorporated dance, which were performed and Domenico da Piacenza credited with the first use of the term ballo (in De Arte Saltandi et Choreas Ducendi) instead of danza (dance) for his baletti or balli. The term eventually became Ballet. The first Ballet per se is thought to be Balthasar de Beaujoyeulx's Ballet Comique de la Reine (1581).

Commedia dell'arte troupe on a wagon, by Jan Miel
, 1640

By the mid-16th century

Commedia Dell'arte became popular in Europe, introducing the use of improvisation. This period also introduced the Elizabethan masque, featuring music, dance and elaborate costumes as well as professional theatrical companies in England. William Shakespeare
's plays in the late 16th century developed from this new class of professional performance.

In 1597, the first opera, Dafne was performed and throughout the 17th century, opera would rapidly become the entertainment of choice for the aristocracy in most of Europe, and eventually for large numbers of people living in cities and towns throughout Europe.

Modern era

The introduction of the

proscenium arch in Italy during the 17th century established the traditional theatre form that persists to this day. Meanwhile, in England, the Puritans
forbade acting, bringing a halt to performing arts that lasted until 1660. After that, women began to appear in both French and English plays. The French introduced a formal dance instruction in the late 17th century.

It is also during this time that the first plays were performed in the American Colonies.

During the 18th century, the introduction of the popular opera buffa brought opera to the masses as an accessible form of performance. Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni are landmarks of the late 18th century opera.

At the turn of the 19th century,

Romantic movement ushered in a new era that led first to the spectacles of grand opera and then to the musical dramas of Giuseppe Verdi and the Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art) of the operas of Richard Wagner
leading directly to the music of the 20th century.

Vaslav Nijinsky dancing the Faun in L'après-midi d'un faune
(1912)

The 19th century was a period of growth for the performing arts for all social classes, technical advances such as the introduction of gaslight to theatres, burlesque, minstrel dancing, and variety theatre. In ballet, women make great progress in the previously male-dominated art.

Modern dance began in the late 19th century and early 20th century in response to the restrictions of traditional ballet. The arrival of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (1909–1929) revolutionized ballet and the performing arts generally throughout the Western world, most importantly through Diaghilev's emphasis on collaboration, which brought choreographers, dancers, set designers/artists, composers and musicians together to revitalize and revolutionize ballet. It is extremely complex.

"System" revolutionized acting in the early 20th century, and continues to have a major influence on actors of stage and screen to the current day. Both impressionism
and modern realism were introduced to the stage during this period.

With the invention of the motion picture in the late 19th century by Thomas Edison and the growth of the motion picture industry in Hollywood in the early 20th century, film became a dominant performance medium throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.

Rhythm and blues, a cultural phenomenon of black America, rose to prominence in the early 20th century, influencing a range of later popular music styles internationally.

Broadway musical
became a phenomenon in the United States.

Postwar

Post-World War II performing arts were highlighted by the resurgence of both ballet and opera in the Western world.

Postmodernism in performing arts dominated the 1960s to large extent.[citation needed]

African performing arts

Indigenous African performance traditions are rooted in ritual, storytelling, movement, and music.[7] Performances were communal with the storytellers and audience interacting and participating in call and response, which is characterized by a vocalist signing a phrase that is then echoed or responded to with a new phrase by the other performers and/or audience. This ancient tradition is rooted in many African cultures.[8]

North Africa

The earliest recorded theatrical event dates back to 2000 BC with the ceremonial plays of Ancient Egypt. The story of the god Osiris was performed annually at festivals throughout the civilization, marking the known beginning of a long relationship between theatre and religion. The Dramatic Ramesseum Papyrus, the oldest surviving illustrated papyrus details the performance during the Sed Festival and has been used as evidence of the birth of theatrical tradition, which western scholars often attribute to ancient Greece.[9]

West Africa

A Griot is a West African oral historian who uses storytelling, poetry, and music to express the genealogies and historical narratives of the tribes they represent, often playing instruments such as the kora.[10] This ancient profession is upheld in a position of community leadership.

Eastern performing arts

West Asia

The most popular forms of theater in the

adab literature, though they were less common than puppetry and ta'ziya theater.[11]

Valiollah Torabi, Iranian naqqāl (storyteller) of Shahnameh.

Iran

Main article: Persian theatre

In

Mareke giri. Prior to the twentieth century, storytelling was the most recognized form of entertainment, although today, some forms still remain. One form, Naghali, was traditionally performed in coffeehouses where the storytellers, or Naghals (Naqqāls), only recited sections of a story at a time, thus retaining regular cliental. These stories were based on events of historical or religious importance and many referenced poetries from the Shahnameh. Oftentimes these stories were altered to bond with the atmosphere or mood of the audience.[12]

India

Main articles:
Sanskrit drama
Bharatanatyam an Indian classical dance originated in Tamil Nadu
Saree

Folk theatre and dramatics can be traced to the religious ritualism of the

Indo-Aryan tribes in which some members of the tribe acted as if they were wild animals, and some others were the hunters. Those who acted as mammals like goats, buffaloes, reindeer, monkeys, etc. were chased by those playing the role of hunters.[citation needed
]

Natya Shastra of Bharata, a theoretical treatise on Indian performing arts, including theatre, dance, acting, and music, which has been compared to Aristotle's Poetics. Bharata is often known as the father of Indian theatrical arts. His Natya Shastra seems to be the first attempt to develop the technique or rather art, of drama in a systematic manner. The Natya Shastra tells us not only what is to be portrayed in a drama, but how the portrayal is to be done. Drama, as Bharata Muni says, is the imitation of men and their doings (loka-vritti). As men and their doings have to be respected on the stage, so drama in Sanskrit is also known by the term roopaka, which means portrayal.[citation needed
]

The Ramayana and Mahabharata can be considered the first recognized plays that originated in India. These epics provided the inspiration to the earliest Indian dramatists and they do it even today. Indian dramatists such as Bhāsa in the 2nd century BC wrote plays that were heavily inspired by the Ramayana and Mahabharata.[citation needed]

Abhijñānaśākuntala (The Recognition of Shakuntala). The last was inspired by a story in the Mahabharata and is the most famous. It was the first to be translated into English and German. In comparison to Bhāsa, who drew heavily from the epics, Kālidāsa can be considered an original playwright.[citation needed
]

The next great Indian dramatist was

Buddhist drama Nagananda. Many other dramatists followed during the Middle Ages.[citation needed
]

There were many performing art forms in the southern part of India, Kerala is such a state with different such art forms like Koodiyattam, Nangyarkoothu, Kathakali, Chakyar koothu, Thirayattam and there were many prominent artists like Painkulam Raman Chakyar and others.[citation needed]

China

Main article:
Chinese theatre
Hand shadow drama, China

There are references to theatrical entertainments in China as early as 1500 BC during the Shang dynasty; they often involved music, clowning and acrobatic displays.[citation needed]

The Tang dynasty is sometimes known as "The Age of 1000 Entertainments". During this era,

Emperor Xuanzong formed an acting school known as the Children of the Pear Garden to produce a form of drama that was primarily musical.[citation needed
]

During the Han Dynasty,

shadow puppetry first emerged as a recognized form of theatre in China. There were two distinct forms of shadow puppetry, Cantonese southern and Pekingese northern. The two styles were differentiated by the method of making the puppets and the positioning of the rods on the puppets, as opposed to the type of play performed by the puppets. Both styles generally performed plays depicting great adventure and fantasy, rarely was this very stylized form of theatre used for political propaganda. Cantonese shadow puppets were the larger of the two. They were built using thick leather that created more substantial shadows. Symbolic color was also very prevalent; a black face represented honesty, a red one bravery. The rods used to control Cantonese puppets were attached perpendicular to the puppets' heads. Thus, they were not seen by the audience when the shadow was created. Pekingese puppets were more delicate and smaller. They were created out of thin, translucent leather usually taken from the belly of a donkey. They were painted with vibrant paints, thus they cast a very colorful shadow. The thin rods that controlled their movements were attached to a leather collar at the neck of the puppet. The rods ran parallel to the bodies of the puppet then turned at a ninety-degree angle to connect to the neck. While these rods were visible when the shadow was cast, they laid outside the shadow of the puppet; thus, they did not interfere with the appearance of the figure. The rods attached at the necks to facilitate the use of multiple heads with one body. When the heads were not being used, they were stored in a muslin book or fabric lined box. The heads were always removed at night. This was in keeping with the old superstition that if left intact, the puppets would come to life at night. Some puppeteers went so far as to store the heads in one book and the bodies in another, to further reduce the possibility of reanimating puppets. Shadow puppetry is said to have reached its highest point of artistic development in the 11th century before becoming a tool of the government.[citation needed
]

In the

acrobatics and music. These developed in the Yuan dynasty into a more sophisticated form with a four- or five-act structure. Yuan drama spread across China and diversified into numerous regional forms, the best known of which is Beijing Opera, which is still popular today.[citation needed
]

Thailand

Further information: Ramakien
Hanuman on his chariot, a scene from the Ramakien in Wat Phra Kaew, Bangkok

In Thailand, it has been a tradition from the Middle Ages to stage plays based on plots drawn from Indian epics. In particular, the theatrical version of Thailand's national epic Ramakien, a version of the Indian Ramayana, remains popular in Thailand even today.

Cambodia

In

AD indicates evidence of dancers at a local temple and using puppetry for religious plays. At the ancient capital Angkor Wat, stories from the Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata have been carved on the walls of temples and palaces. Similar reliefs are found at Borobudur
in Indonesia.

Philippines

In the

José de la Cruz during the Spanish era. Aside from theatrical performances, different films were produced by different film studios/ television productions. The first produced "Ang Ibong Adarna" film was produced by LVN Pictures
, the biggest film studio in the history of the Philippines.

Kay Selya
" (English: "For Celia") specially dedicated for Rivera.

The

El Filibusterismo (translations: The filibusterism; The Subversive or The Subversion, as in the Locsín English translation, are also possible translations, also known by its alternative English title The Reign of Greed) (1891). The novel's dark theme departs dramatically from the previous novel's hopeful and romantic atmosphere, signifying Ibarra's resort to solving his country's issues through violent means, after his previous attempt in reforming the country's system made no effect and seemed impossible with the corrupt attitude of the Spaniards toward the Filipinos. These novels were written during the colonization of the Philippines by the Spanish Empire
.

All of these literary pieces were under the curriculum of the

El Filibusterismo
(Grade 10).

Japan

Kabuki play
Performance in Kagoshima
Main articles: Noh, Bunraku, Kabuki, and Butoh

During the 14th century, there were small companies of actors in

shōgun of Japan, he implored Zeami to have a court education for his arts.[13] After Zeami succeeded his father, he continued to perform and adapt his style into what is today Noh. A mixture of pantomime and vocal acrobatics, the Noh style of theatre has become one of Japan's most refined forms of theatrical performance.[14]

Japan, after a long period of civil wars and political disarray, was unified and at peace primarily due to shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu (1600–1668). However, alarmed at the increasing numbers of Christians within the country due to the proselytizing efforts of Christian missionaries, he cut off contact from Japan to Europe and China and outlawed Christianity. When peace did come, a flourish of cultural influence and growing merchant class demanded its own entertainment. The first form of theatre to flourish was Ningyō jōruri (commonly referred to as Bunraku). The founder of and main contributor to Ningyō jōruri, Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653–1725), turned his form of theatre into a true art form. Ningyō jōruri is a highly stylized form of theatre using puppets, today about 1⁄3rd the size of a human. The men who control the puppets train their entire lives to become master puppeteers, when they can then operate the puppet's head and right arm and choose to show their faces during the performance. The other puppeteers, controlling the less important limbs of the puppet, cover themselves and their faces in a black suit, to imply their invisibility. The dialogue is handled by a single person, who uses varied tones of voice and speaking manners to simulate different characters. Chikamatsu wrote thousands of plays during his lifetime, most of which are still used today.[citation needed]

Kabuki began shortly after Bunraku, legend has it by an actress named Okuni, who lived around the end of the 16th century. Most of kabuki's material came from Noh and Bunraku, and its erratic dance-type movements are also an effect of Bunraku. However, kabuki is less formal and more distant than Noh, yet very popular among the Japanese public. Actors are trained in many varied things including dancing, singing, pantomime, and even acrobatics. Kabuki was first performed by young girls, then by young boys, and by the end of the 16th century, kabuki companies consisted of all men. The men who portrayed women on stage were specifically trained to elicit the essence of a woman in their subtle movements and gestures.[citation needed]

History of performing arts in the Americas

History of performing arts in Oceania

Oftentimes, Melanesian dance exhibits a cultural theme of masculinity where leadership and a unique skill set are important for sharing with the community.[15] These dances demonstrate the soldiery of a man; however they can also represent profitability such as encouraging conflict resolutions or healing.[16] The costumes of impersonating dancers incorporate large masks and unhuman-like characteristics that act to imitate mythical figures. The music can also act as a voice for these magical personas.[15]

See also

References

  1. ^ "the-performing-arts noun – Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage notes | Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary at OxfordLearnersDictionaries.com". www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com. Archived from the original on 30 July 2022. Retrieved 19 January 2021.
  2. S2CID 145689520
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  3. ^ Mackrell, Judith R. (19 May 2017). "dance". Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Archived from the original on 7 October 2019. Retrieved 14 July 2017.
  4. ^ a b Mackrell, Judith. "Dance". Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original on 24 March 2015. Retrieved 11 March 2015.
  5. ^ Nana, Loria (30 June 2015). "Philosophical Context of Contemporary Choreographic Space" (PDF). GESJ: Musicology and Cultural Science. 11 (1): 64–67.
  6. ^ Epperson, Gordan (11 April 2016). "music". Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Archived from the original on 28 October 2019. Retrieved 14 July 2017.
  7. ^ "African Traditional Theater or Unknown Performances". quasianonima.it (in Italian). Retrieved 25 January 2023.
  8. ^ Katie. "The Call And Response In African Culture". brightstarmusical.com. Retrieved 25 January 2023.
  9. S2CID 249915001
    .
  10. ^ "Griot | African troubadour-historian | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 25 January 2023.
  11. ISBN 978-965-264-014-7
  12. ProQuest 209398361
    .
  13. ^ "the-noh.com : The Words of Zeami : His Dramatic Life". www.the-noh.com. Archived from the original on 11 March 2022. Retrieved 19 September 2021.
  14. OCLC 1211914.[page needed
    ]
  15. ^ a b "Oceanic music and dance". Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 8 October 2021. Retrieved 2 October 2021.
  16. ProQuest 222380632
    .

External links

Library resources about
Performing arts
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