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Performing arts 1 Performing arts Performing arts Major forms Dance · Music · Opera · Theatre · Circus Minor forms Magic · Puppetry Genres Drama · Tragedy · Comedy · Tragicomedy · Romance · Satire · Epic · Lyric The performing arts are those forms of art which differ from the plastic arts insofar as the former uses the artist's own body, face, and presence as a medium, and the latter uses materials such as clay, metal or paint which can be molded or transformed to create some physical art object. The term "performing arts" first appeared in the English language in the year 1711. Types of performing arts Performing arts include the dance, music, opera, drama, magic, Spoken word and circus arts. Artists who participate in performing arts in front of an audience are called performers, including actors, comedians, dancers, magicians, musicians, and singers. Performing arts are also supported by workers in related fields, such as songwriting and stagecraft. Performers often adapt their appearance, such as with costumes and stage makeup, etc. There is also a specialized form of fine art in which the artists perform their work live to an audience. This is called performance art. Most performance art also involves some form of plastic art, perhaps in the creation of props. Dance was often referred to as a plastic art during the Modern dance era.

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Performing arts 1

Performing arts

Performing arts Major forms

Dance · Music · Opera · Theatre · Circus

Minor forms

Magic · Puppetry

Genres

Drama · Tragedy · Comedy · Tragicomedy · Romance · Satire · Epic · Lyric

The performing arts are those forms of art which differ from the plastic arts insofar as the former uses the artist'sown body, face, and presence as a medium, and the latter uses materials such as clay, metal or paint which can bemolded or transformed to create some physical art object. The term "performing arts" first appeared in the Englishlanguage in the year 1711.

Types of performing artsPerforming arts include the dance, music, opera, drama, magic, Spoken word and circus arts.Artists who participate in performing arts in front of an audience are called performers, including actors, comedians,dancers, magicians, musicians, and singers. Performing arts are also supported by workers in related fields, such assongwriting and stagecraft.Performers often adapt their appearance, such as with costumes and stage makeup, etc.There is also a specialized form of fine art in which the artists perform their work live to an audience. This is calledperformance art. Most performance art also involves some form of plastic art, perhaps in the creation of props.Dance was often referred to as a plastic art during the Modern dance era.

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Performing arts 2

MusicMusic as an academic discipline mainly focuses on three career paths, music performance, music education (trainingmusic teachers), and musicology (theory, history, etc.). Students learn to play a musical instrument, but also studymusic theory, musicology, history of music and musical composition. In the arts tradition, music is also used tobroaden skills of non-musicians by teaching skills such as concentration and listening.

Drama

Kudiyattam, an example of performanceart. Artist Guru Mani Madhava Chakyar

"Drama" (Greek "to do", "seeing place") is the branch of the performing artsconcerned with acting out stories in front of an audience using combinationsof speech, gesture, music, dance, sound and spectacle—indeed any one ormore elements of the other performing arts. In addition to the standardnarrative dialogue style of plays, theatre takes such forms as musicals, opera,ballet, illusion, mime, classical Indian dance, kabuki, mummers' plays,improvisational theatre, stand-up comedy, pantomime, and non-conventionalor arthouse theatre.

Dance

Dance (from Old French dancier, perhaps from Frankish) generally refers tohuman movement either used as a form of expression or presented in a social,spiritual or performance setting.

Dance is also used to describe methods of non-verbal communication (seebody language) between humans or animals (bee dance, mating dance),motion in inanimate objects (the leaves danced in the wind), and certainmusic genres.

Choreography is the art of making dances, and the person who does this is called a choreographer.Definitions of what constitutes dance are dependent on social, cultural, aesthetic artistic and moral constraints andrange from functional movement (such as folk dance) to codified, virtuoso techniques such as ballet. In sports,gymnastics, figure skating, and synchronized swimming are dance disciplines while martial arts "kata" are oftencompared to dances.

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History of Western performing arts

Sophocles, as depicted in the Nordiskfamiljebok.

Starting in the 6th century BC, the Classical period of performing art began inGreece, ushered in by the tragic poets such as Sophocles. These poets wroteplays which, in some cases, incorporated dance (see Euripides). TheHellenistic period began the widespread use of comedy.

However by the 6th century AD, Western performing arts had been largelyended, as the Dark Ages began. Between the 9th century and 14th century,performing art in the West was limited to religious historical enactments andmorality plays, organized by the Church in celebration of holy days and otherimportant events.

Renaissance

In the 15th century performing arts, along with the arts in general, saw arevival as the Renaissance began in Italy and spread throughout Europe plays,some of which incorporated dance were performed and Domenico daPiacenza was credited with the first use of the term ballo (in De Arte Saltandiet Choreas Ducendi) instead of danza (dance) for his baletti or balli whichlater came to be known as Ballets. The first Ballet per se is considered to beBalthasar de Beaujoyeulx's Ballet Comique de la Reine (1581).

commedia dell'arte show, dated 1657.(Louvre)

By the mid-16th century commedia dell'arte became popular in Europe,introducing the use of improvisation. This period also introduced theElizabethan masque, featuring music, dance and elaborate costumes as well asprofessional theatrical companies in England. William Shakespeare's plays inthe late 16th century developed from this new class of professionalperformance.

In 1597, the first opera, Dafne was performed and throughout the 17thcentury, opera would rapidly become the entertainment of choice for thearistocracy in most of Europe, and eventually for large numbers of peopleliving in cities and towns throughout Europe.

Modern era

The introduction of the proscenium arch in Italy during the 17th century established the traditional theater form thatpersists to this day. Meanwhile, in England, the Puritans forbid acting, bringing a halt to performing arts whichlasted until 1660. After this period, women began to appear in both French and English plays. The French introduceda 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 accessibleform of performance. Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni are landmarks of the late 18th centuryopera.

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At the turn of the 19th century Beethoven and the Romantic movement ushered in a new era that lead first to thespectacles of grand opera and then to the great musical dramas of Giuseppe Verdi and the Gesamtkunstwerk (totalwork of art) of the operas of Richard Wagner leading directly to the music of the 20th century.The 19th century was a period of growth for the performing arts for all social classes, the technical introduction ofgaslight to theaters in the United States, burlesque (a British import that became popular in the U.S.), minstreldancing, and variety theater. In ballet, women make great progress in the previously male-dominated art.

Isadora Duncan, one of the developers offree dance.

Modern dance began in the late 19th century and early 20th century inresponse to the restrictions of traditional ballet.

Konstantin Stanislavski's "System" revolutionized acting in the early 20thcentury, and continues to have a major influence on actors of stage and screento the current day. Both impressionism and modern realism were introducedto the stage during this period.

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

The Darktown Follies and the later cultural growth of the HarlemRenaissance spanned the 1910s to the early 1940s. Rhythm and blues, acultural phenomenon of black America became a distinctive genera in theearly 20th century.

In the 1930s Jean Rosenthal introduced what would be come modern stagelighting, changing the nature of the stage as the Broadway musical became aphenomenon in the United States. George Gershwin and Rodgers & Hammerstein radically re-shaped the medium asthe Great depression ended and World War II erupted.

Post-War performancePost-World War II performing arts were highlighted by the resurgence of both ballet and opera in Europe and theUnited States.

Portrait of Alvin Ailey.

Alvin Ailey's revolutionary American Dance Theater was created in the1950s, signaling the radical changes that were to come to performing arts inthe 1950s and 1960s as new cultural themes bombarded the publicconsciousness in the United States and abroad. Postmodernism in performingarts dominated the 1960s to large extent.

Rock and roll evolved from rhythm and blues during the 1950s, and becamethe staple musical form of popular entertainment.

In 1968, Hair introduced the rock opera.

History of Eastern performing arts

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Middle EastThe earliest recorded theatrical event dates back to 2000 BC with the passion plays of Ancient Egypt. This story ofthe god Osiris was performed annually at festivals throughout the civilization, marking the known beginning of along relationship between theatre and religion.The most popular forms of theater in the medieval Islamic world were puppet theatre (which included hand puppets,shadow plays and marionette productions) and live passion plays known as ta'ziya, where actors re-enact episodesfrom Muslim history. In particular, Shia Islamic plays revolved around the shaheed (martyrdom) of Ali's sons Hasanibn Ali and Husayn ibn Ali. Live secular plays were known as akhraja, recorded in medieval adab literature, thoughthey were less common than puppetry and ta'ziya theater.[1]

IndiaFolk theatre and dramatics can be traced to the religious ritualism of the Vedic peoples in the 2nd millennium BC.This folk theatre of the misty past was mixed with dance, food, ritualism, plus a depiction of events from daily life. Itwas the last element which made it the origin of the classical theatre of later times. Many historians, notably D. D.Kosambi, Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya, Adya Rangacharaya, etc. have referred to the prevalence of ritualismamongst Indo-Aryan tribes in which some members of the tribe acted as if they were wild animals and some otherswere the hunters. Those who acted as mammals like goats, buffaloes, reindeer, monkeys, etc. were chased by thoseplaying the role of hunters.Bharata Muni (fl. 5th–2nd century BC) was an ancient Indian writer best known for writing the Natya Shastra ofBharata, a theoretical treatise on Indian performing arts, including theatre, dance, acting, and music, which has beencompared to Aristotle's Poetics. Bharata is often known as the father of Indian theatrical arts. His Natya Shastraseems to be the first attempt to develop the technique or rather art, of drama in a systematic manner. The NatyaShastra tells us not only what is to be portrayed in a drama, but how the portrayal is to be done. Drama, as BharataMuni says, is the imitation of men and their doings (loka-vritti). As men and their doings have to be respected on thestage, so drama in Sanskrit is also known by the term roopaka which means portrayal.The Ramayana and Mahabharata can be considered the first recognized plays that originated in India. These epicsprovided the inspiration to the earliest Indian dramatists and they do it even today. Indian dramatists such as Bhasain the second century BC wrote plays that were heavily inspired by the Ramayana and Mahabharata.Kālidāsa in the first century BC, is arguably considered to be ancient India's greatest dramatist. Three famousromantic plays written by Kālidāsa are the Mālavikāgnimitram (Mālavikā and Agnimitra), Vikramuurvashiiya(Pertaining to Vikrama and Urvashi), and Abhijñānaśākuntala (The Recognition of Shakuntala). The last wasinspired by a story in the Mahabharata and is the most famous. It was the first to be translated into English andGerman. In comparison to Bhasa, who drew heavily from the epics, Kālidāsa can be considered an originalplaywright.The next great Indian dramatist was Bhavabhuti (c. 7th century). He is said to have written the following three plays:Malati-Madhava, Mahaviracharita and Uttar Ramacharita. Among these three, the last two cover between them, theentire epic of Ramayana. The powerful Indian emperor Harsha (606–648) is credited with having written threeplays: the comedy Ratnavali, Priyadarsika, and the Buddhist drama Nagananda. Many other dramatists followedduring the Middle Ages.

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ChinaThere are references to theatrical entertainments in China as early as 1500 BC during the Shang Dynasty; they ofteninvolved music, clowning and acrobatic displays.The Tang Dynasty is sometimes known as "The Age of 1000 Entertainments". During this era, Emperor Xuanzongformed an acting school known as the Children of the Pear Garden to produce a form of drama that was primarilymusical.During the Han Dynasty, shadow puppetry first emerged as a recognized form of theatre in China. There were twodistinct forms of shadow puppetry, Cantonese southern and Pekingese northern. The two styles were differentiatedby the method of making the puppets and the positioning of the rods on the puppets, as opposed to the type of playperformed by the puppets. Both styles generally performed plays depicting great adventure and fantasy, rarely wasthis very stylized form of theatre used for political propaganda. Cantonese shadow puppets were the larger of thetwo. They were built using thick leather which created more substantial shadows. Symbolic color was also veryprevalent; a black face represented honesty, a red one bravery. The rods used to control Cantonese puppets wereattached perpendicular to the puppets’ heads. Thus, they were not seen by the audience when the shadow wascreated. Pekingese puppets were more delicate and smaller. They were created out of thin, translucent leather usuallytaken from the belly of a donkey. They were painted with vibrant paints, thus they cast a very colorful shadow. Thethin rods which controlled their movements were attached to a leather collar at the neck of the puppet. The rods ranparallel to the bodies of the puppet then turned at a ninety degree angle to connect to the neck. While these rods werevisible when the shadow was cast, they laid outside the shadow of the puppet; thus they did not interfere with theappearance of the figure. The rods attached at the necks to facilitate the use of multiple heads with one body. Whenthe heads were not being used, they were stored in a muslin book or fabric lined box. The heads were alwaysremoved at night. This was in keeping with the old superstition that if left intact, the puppets would come to life atnight. Some puppeteers went so far as to store the heads in one book and the bodies in another, to further reduce thepossibility of reanimating puppets. Shadow puppetry is said to have reached its highest point of artistic developmentin the eleventh century before becoming a tool of the government.In the Sung Dynasty, there were many popular plays involving acrobatics and music. These developed in the YuanDynasty 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 BeijingOpera, which is still popular today.

Southeast AsiaTheatre in Southeast Asia was mostly influenced by Indian theatre.In Thailand, it has been a tradition from the Middle Ages to stage plays based on plots drawn from Indian epics. Inparticular, the theatrical version of Thailand's national epic Ramakien, a version of the Indian Ramayana, remainspopular in Thailand even today.In Cambodia, at the ancient capital Angkor Wat, stories from the Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata havebeen carved on the walls of temples and palaces. Similar reliefs are found at Borobudur in Indonesia.

JapanDuring the 14th century, there were small companies of actors in Japan who performed short, sometimes vulgarcomedies. A director of one of these companies, Kan'ami (1333–1384), had a son, Zeami Motokiyo (1363–1443)who was considered one of the finest child actors in Japan. When Kan'ami's company performed for AshikagaYoshimitsu (1358–1408), the Shogun of Japan, he implored Zeami to have a court education for his arts. AfterZeami succeeded his father, he continued to perform and adapt his style into what is today Noh. A mixture ofpantomime and vocal acrobatics, this style has fascinated the Japanese for hundreds of years.

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Japan, after a long period of civil wars and political disarray, was unified and at peace primarily due to shogunTokugawa Ieyasu (1600–1668). However, alarmed at increasing Christian growth, he cut off contact from Japan toEurope and China and outlawed Christianity. When peace did come, a flourish of cultural influence and growingmerchant class demanded its own entertainment. The first form of theatre to flourish was Ningyō jōruri (commonlyreferred 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 usingpuppets, today about 1/3d the size of a human. The men who control the puppets train their entire lives to becomemaster puppeteers, when they can then operate the puppet's head and right arm and choose to show their faces duringthe performance. The other puppeteers, controlling the less important limbs of the puppet, cover themselves and theirfaces in a black suit, to imply their invisibility. The dialogue is handled by a single person, who uses varied tones ofvoice and speaking manners to simulate different characters. Chikamatsu wrote thousands of plays during hislifetime, most of which are still used today.Kabuki began shortly after Bunraku, legend has it by an actress named Okuni, who lived around the end of thesixteenth century. Most of Kabuki's material came from Nõ and Bunraku, and its erratic dance-type movements arealso an effect of Bunraku. However, Kabuki is less formal and more distant than Nõ, yet very popular among theJapanese public. Actors are trained in many varied things including dancing, singing, pantomime, and evenacrobatics. Kabuki was first performed by young girls, then by young boys, and by the end of the sixteenth century,Kabuki companies consisted of all men. The men who portrayed women on stage were specifically trained to elicitthe essence of a woman in their subtle movements and gestures.

See also• Performance art• Performing arts education• Performing arts presenters• United States copyright law in the performing arts

References[1] Moreh, Shmuel (1986), "Live Theater in Medieval Islam", in David Ayalon, Moshe Sharon, Studies in Islamic History and Civilization, Brill

Publishers, pp. 565–601, ISBN 965264014X

External links• Bibliography of Performing Arts In The East (http:/ / asia-perfo-arts. com/ )

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Article Sources and ContributorsPerforming arts  Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=395481766  Contributors: 14Ave, 3bulletproof16, Aavviof, Abce2, Aclevine, AdjustShift, Agentzx3, Aliveisverypoetic,Altenmann, AndreasPraefcke, Angr, Arnobarnard, Ashawley, Bebestbe, Bobo192, CTanguy, Can't sleep, clown will eat me, CanisRufus, Carl.bunderson, Carolynparrishfan, Cherubino, Chicagogod, Chris the speller, Clubmarx, Cometstyles, Comixboy, CommonsDelinker, Conversion script, Darigan, Dbachmann, Deadstar, Deb, Denny, Deville, DocWatson42, Douglasr007,EBAYURMOM, Emperorbma, Epbr123, Fabiform, Fatnewt, Foxydance, Fplay, FredR, Galaxiaad, Gchuva, Geniac, GoingBatty, Goldenrowley, Greenoha, Gurchzilla, Gwernol, HappyCamper,Harmil, Hbent, Hmains, Howcheng, Hyacinth, Icey, Ifyouseekamywiki, Iokseng, Jagged 85, Jamesmarkhetterley, JeanColumbia, Jgainesvan, Johnhenry312, Josh Redfern, Joyradost, Jujutacular,Jwoodger, Kevinbrowning, Khfan93, Kleinzach, Ksyrie, Lagomen, Lahiru k, Lambtron, Larry_Sanger, Leviculus, Lightmouse, Lradrama, M a s, Mahanga, Margin1522, Martin Lyngbo,Maurreen, MegX, Michael Hardy, Michael Snow, Mkill, NE2, NawlinWiki, Newbyguesses, Nick Number, Noah Salzman, Ohiobusinessboy, Ohka-, Oicumayberight, Olivier, Onebravemonkey,Orphan Wiki, Patrick, Paul foord, Performing Arts, Pink!Teen, PoccilScript, Promethean, Qazqazqweqwe, Quadell, RDF, RandomP, Rjwilmsi, SHallathome, Sanjay Lewis, Scjessey, SecundusZephyrus, Shadowjams, Shanes, SharkD, Snoyes, Sparkit, SpuriousQ, Squids and Chips, Sreekanthv, Subitosera, Symane, THEN WHO WAS PHONE?, Tassedethe, Tbhotch, TheTranshumanist, The Transhumanist (AWB), Tide rolls, Tony Sidaway, Unyoyega, User A1, VMS Mosaic, Violncello, Vriullop, Wayland, WillWikiWontWiki, Wimt, Wknight94, Wrightjack, X!,Zvika, c373514-a.provo1.ut.home.com, 122 anonymous edits

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