Performing arts

The performing arts are arts such as music, dance, and drama which are performed for an audience. They are different from the visual arts, which make objects. Performing arts include theatre, music, and dance. Performances may happen in special buildings, like theatres, or outside in festivals and on streets. They can also be seen in films or on television.

Performing arts traditions exist in every society. Music and dance go back to very old times, and theatre began in ancient Greece, India, and China. These performances had religious, ceremonial, and entertainment purposes. Traditions like Japanese Noh and Kabuki and Indian classical dance are important to UNESCO.

Western performing arts history began with ancient Greek tragedy and comedy. It continued with medieval mystery plays, and the creation of opera and ballet during the Renaissance. In the early 20th century, new ideas changed dance and theatre. Today, performances often mix different types of art.

Live performances are a way to entertain people. With audio and video recording, people can enjoy performing arts at home. In stories, characters show their feelings.

Types

Theatre

Main article: Theatre

Theatre is a type of performing art where actors tell stories in front of people. They use words, movements, music, and special effects. The most common type is a play, where actors follow a script. There are also musicals, with singing and dancing, and operas, where everything is sung. Some theatre is formal, and some is more personal.

Dance

Main article: Dance

Dance is moving the body in rhythm, often with music, to entertain people. Dance can be simple and traditional, like folk dances, or formal, like ballet. Dancers learn steps made by a choreographer to tell a story or show feelings. Dance is used in many cultures for celebrations and fun. Modern dance and styles like hip-hop keep changing with new ways to move.

Music

Main article: Music

Music is an art that uses sound to make patterns of pitch, rhythm, and loudness. Musicians play instruments or sing. Music can be planned or made up on the spot. Types include folk, jazz, hip hop, pop, and rock. Music can be played live for an audience or recorded for later listening. Jazz mixes written music with improvisation, and classical music plays written scores exactly.

Film

Main article: Film

Film, or cinema, started with early inventions like Thomas Edison’s kinetoscope and became popular entertainment. Acting in film is different from theatre because actors perform for a camera. The footage is edited to make the final movie. Film includes cinema and television, with each country having its own styles and traditions.

Opera

In opera, stories are told mostly through singing, with an orchestra playing background music. Opera combines music, drama, and visual effects. It began in Italy long ago and is now a special kind of entertainment. Operas can be small and funny or large and grand. Famous composers like Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, and Puccini wrote many operas still performed today.

Other forms

Circus arts include skills like clowning, acrobatics, balancing, and juggling. Ancient drawings show acrobatics at parties long ago. Today, circuses tell stories and mix many skills, like in shows by Cirque du Soleil. The performing arts also include musical theatre, magic shows, mime, spoken word, puppetry, performance art, improv, and stand-up comedy.

History

Ancient and classical periods

Long ago, big religious events in Egypt may have included theatre-like activities. The oldest known play text is the Dramatic Ramesseum Papyrus from around the 20th century BCE.

Greek writers such as Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides created tragedies, while Aristophanes, Cratinus, and Menander created comedies. Greek plays were performed outdoors with actors wearing masks. Greek theatre spread far beyond.

India had a rich tradition of performing arts. The Natya Shastra is an ancient book on theatre. Famous Indian plays came from writers like Bhāsa, Kalidasa, and Bhavabhuti. Two important Indian stories, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, are still popular today.

In China, theatre began during the Shang dynasty with music and performances. Shadow puppetry started later. During the Tang dynasty, Emperor Xuanzong created a garden to train musicians and performers. In the Yuan dynasty, a style of play called Zaju became popular, and it helped create what we now know as Beijing opera.

Middle Ages

Main article: Middle Ages

In Europe during the Middle Ages, theatre was often linked to the Christian Church. Special plays called mystery plays told Bible stories. Travelling performers called jongleurs entertained people with singing, jokes, and magic.

In West Africa, griots were important storytellers who shared history through music and stories.

Renaissance

Main article: Renaissance

The Renaissance began in Italy in the 1400s and spread across Europe. One of the first uses of the word ballo was by Domenico da Piacenza to describe dances, which later became known as Ballet. The first true Ballet is thought to be Balthasar de Beaujoyeulx’s Ballet Comique de la Reine in 1581.

By the mid-1500s, a style of performance called commedia dell'arte became popular in Europe. In England, a real theatre industry grew, and this is where William Shakespeare’s plays were performed.

In 1597, the first opera, Dafne, was performed. Over the next century, opera became very popular.

A special arch called a proscenium arch and a curtain were used in Italy in the 1600s, and this style of theatre is still used today. In England, leaders called the Puritans stopped theatre performances until 1660. After that, women started acting in plays. In the late 1600s, France began teaching formal dance.

18th and 19th centuries

The popular style opera buffa made opera easier for everyone to enjoy. Famous works by Mozart like The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni were created in the 1700s.

In the early 1800s, the Romantic movement focused on feelings and national pride. This led to big operas called grand operas and later to musical plays by Giuseppe Verdi. Famous ballets from this time include Giselle (1841) and Swan Lake (1877).

The 1800s also saw more people moving to cities, which helped grow popular performing arts. Shows like variety shows, vaudeville, and burlesque entertained everyday people. New kinds of lighting changed how theatre looked.

Modern era

Main article: Modernism

Modern dance began in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Leaders like Isadora Duncan and Loie Fuller used natural movements. The Ballets Russes, led by Sergei Diaghilev from 1909 to 1929, changed ballet forever.

A way of acting called the "System" by Konstantin Stanislavski changed acting in the early 1900s. Many acting schools now teach Method acting.

Movies were invented in the 1890s and became very popular after World War I. Later, radio and television added new ways for people to watch performances.

Postwar

After World War II, opera and ballet grew with help from governments. A style called Postmodernism in the 1970s and 1980s mixed different kinds of art. Today, digital technology is used in live performances.

Animation, motion capture, and live online shows changed what can be done on stage. During COVID-19 lockdowns, theatres around the world created shows to watch online.

Non-Western and Indigenous traditions

African performing arts

Africa has many cultures and over three thousand different groups. Traditional African performances often include dance, song, music, and acting. These shows are shared experiences where the people telling the stories and the audience interact.

Griots are special musicians who keep oral histories and family stories alive. They play instruments like the kora while singing or telling stories.

Eastern performing arts

Iran

Main article: Persian theatre

In Iran, there are many kinds of theatrical shows. Before the twentieth century, storytelling was a popular form of entertainment. One form, Naghali, was performed in coffeehouses where storytellers shared parts of a tale at a time. These stories often came from important historical or religious events.

India

Main articles: Theatre in India and Sanskrit drama

India has many classical dance styles such as Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Odissi, Manipuri, Kuchipudi, Kathakali, Mohiniattam, and Sattriya. Each of these dances comes from a different region and has its own history. Kerala’s Koodiyattam is one of the oldest theater traditions.

Folk theatre in India mixes music, dance, acting, poetry, storytelling, art, religion, and festivals. Bollywood, based in Mumbai, combines dance, music, and theatre and has become one of the world’s largest entertainment industries.

China

Main article: Theatre of China

Records show that theatrical shows existed in China as early as 1500 BC during the Shang dynasty. These shows often included music, clowning, and acrobatics.

During the Tang dynasty, Emperor Xuanzong of Tang started an acting school called the Children of the Pear Garden to create dramas that were mostly musical.

In the Song dynasty, many popular plays used acrobatics and music. These grew into more complex forms during the Yuan dynasty, spreading across China and developing into many regional styles. Beijing Opera, still popular today, is one of the best known.

Thailand

Further information: Ramakien

In Thailand, it has been tradition since the Middle Ages to perform plays based on stories from Indian epics. The theatrical version of Thailand’s national epic Ramakien, which comes from the Indian Ramayana, remains popular even today.

Japan

Main articles: Noh, Bunraku, Kabuki, and Butoh

Japan has created many unique and sophisticated forms of theatre. In the 14th century, Kan'ami and his son Zeami Motokiyo developed Noh theatre, which combines masked acting, chanting, music, and dramatic storytelling. Noh is known for its refined elegance.

Bunraku is a type of puppet theatre from the 17th century. It uses large puppets moved by visible puppeteers, with chanting and shamisen music.

Kabuki began shortly after Bunraku and is more accessible, using elaborate costumes, makeup, and special stage effects. It was originally performed by women but later became all-male.

Americas

In the time before Europeans arrived, the indigenous peoples of the Americas had their own performing arts. These included Aztec and Maya rituals that featured dances, music, and theatrical shows.

Among the Mexica (Aztecs) of central Mexico, performances helped bring people together and often had religious meanings. The tonalpohualli ritual calendar marked important days with ceremonies that included dancers, singers, and musicians. Big ceremonies in the Templo Mayor courtyard could include thousands of dancers arranged in circles, with drums, flutes, and rattles.

Incan rituals and festivals also included music, dances, and theatrical shows that told myths and legends. Northwest Coast cultures, like the Haida, Tlingit, and Kwakwaka’wakw, had traditions of storytelling, making masks, and holding ceremonial dances. In the potlatch, Kwakwaka’wakw masks could open to show a surprise animal mask.

The colonial period brought together European and indigenous cultures. The Spanish and French wrote and performed plays. Indigenous peoples also added parts of their traditional performing arts to these new colonial shows.