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 produce physical or static objects. Performing arts include a range of disciplines which are performed in front of a live audience, including theatre, music, and dance. Performances may take place in purpose-built buildings, such as theatres and opera houses, as well as in open air festivals, street settings, and recorded formats like film or television.

Performing arts traditions are present in every society. Music and dance date to pre-historic times, while theatrical forms appear in ancient Greece, India, and China. Performance served combinations of religious, ceremonial, and entertainment functions. Traditions including Japanese Noh and Kabuki as well as Indian classical dance have been recognized by UNESCO as Intangible Heritage of Humanity.

Western performing arts history spans from ancient Greek tragedy and comedy through medieval mystery plays, the emergence of opera and ballet in the Renaissance, and the Romantic expansion of grand opera. In the modernist revolutions of the early 20th century, figures such as Isadora Duncan, Konstantin Stanislavski, and Sergei Diaghilev reworked the principles of dance and theatre. Postmodern performance increasingly challenges the boundaries between disciplines.

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. In narrative performance characters express emotions.

Types

Theatre

Main article: Theatre

Theatre is a type of performing art where stories are acted out in front of an audience. Actors use speech, gestures, music, dance, and special effects to tell the story. The most common type is a play, where actors follow a script. There are also musicals, which mix singing and dancing with the story, and operas, where everything is sung. Some theatre is very formal, while other types are more personal and close to the audience.

Dance

Main article: Dance

Dance is the art of moving the body in rhythm, often to music, to entertain an audience. Dance can be simple and traditional, like folk dances, or very formal and trained, like ballet. Dancers follow steps created by a choreographer, who decides how the movements tell a story or express feelings. Dance is used in many cultures for celebrations, ceremonies, and fun. Modern dance and styles like hip-hop continue to evolve and include many different ways of moving.

Music

Main article: Music

Music is an art form that uses sound to create patterns of pitch, rhythm, and loudness. Musicians can play instruments or sing, and music can be planned or made up on the spot. There are many kinds of music, like folk, jazz, hip hop, pop, and rock. Music can be performed live in front of an audience or recorded for people to listen to later. Jazz mixes written music with improvisation, while classical music focuses on playing written scores exactly as they are.

Film

Main article: Film

Film, or cinema, began with early inventions like Thomas Edison’s kinetoscope and grew into a popular form of entertainment. Acting in film is different from theatre because actors perform for a camera instead of speaking directly to an audience. The footage is then edited together to create the final movie. Film includes both cinema and television, and different countries have their own unique styles and traditions in filmmaking.

Opera

In opera, stories are told mainly through singing, with an orchestra playing background music. Opera mixes music, drama, and visual effects. It started in Italy hundreds of years ago and has since become a special form of entertainment. Operas can be small and funny or large and grand. Famous composers like Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, and Puccini wrote many operas that are still performed today.

Other forms

Circus arts include skills like clowning, acrobatics, balancing on wires, and juggling. Ancient drawings show that acrobatics was performed long ago at parties and festivals. Today, circuses can tell stories and mix many different 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, as early as the 19th century BCE, big religious events in Egypt might 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 in the fifth century BCE, while Aristophanes, Cratinus, and Menander created comedies. Greek plays were performed outdoors with actors wearing masks. Greek theatre spread across the Mediterranean and beyond.

India had its own rich tradition of performing arts. The Natya Shastra is an ancient book on theatre from around 200 BCE to 200 CE. 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 India and Southeast Asia.

In China, theatre began during the Shang dynasty around 1600–1046 BCE with music and performances. Shadow puppetry started in the Han dynasty around 202 BCE to 220 CE. Later, during the Tang dynasty from 618 to 907 CE, Emperor Xuanzong created a special garden, the Pear Garden, to train musicians and performers. In the Yuan dynasty from 1271 to 1368, a style of play called Zaju became very 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. Besides religious plays, travelling performers called jongleurs entertained people with singing, jokes, clowning, juggling, tumbling, and magic.

In West Africa, griots were important storytellers who shared history through music and stories. They also gave advice to leaders.

Renaissance

Main article: Renaissance

The Renaissance began in Italy in the 1400s and spread across Europe. It brought back many old ideas and also created new ones. One of the first uses of the word ballo was by Domenico da Piacenza to describe organized court 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 very popular in Europe. It used made-up characters and was performed by professionals. In England, a real theatre industry grew, and this is where William Shakespeare’s plays were performed in the late 1500s.

In 1597, the first opera, Dafne, was performed. Over the next century, opera became very popular with rich people and later with many people in cities and towns across Europe.

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, exciting operas called grand operas and later to musical plays by Giuseppe Verdi. A idea called the Gesamtkunstwerk by Richard Wagner combined dance, music, and poetry. Famous ballets from this time include Giselle (1841) and Swan Lake (1877). Romantic ballet gave more importance to female dancers and special dancing techniques called pointe.

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, first using gas and later electric lighting, changed how theatre looked.

Modern era

Main article: Modernism

Modern dance began in the late 1800s and early 1900s as a way to break free from strict ballet rules. Leaders like Isadora Duncan and Loie Fuller used natural movements instead of strict steps. The Ballets Russes, led by Sergei Diaghilev from 1909 to 1929, changed ballet forever by bringing together many different artists. New ballet groups with strong connections to their countries formed across Europe in the 1930s.

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

Movies were invented in the 1890s and became very popular after World War I. Hollywood created movie stars and shaped how people saw actors. 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, leading to new ideas about live and digital performances.

Non-Western and Indigenous traditions

African performing arts

Africa is a place with many cultures, home to 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, creating a lively back-and-forth.

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 and sometimes included poems from the Shahnameh. The stories would change a little to fit the mood of the audience.

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 and was named a masterpiece of human heritage by UNESCO in 2001.

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, with onnagata developing special skills to portray women. Noh, Bunraku, and Kabuki are recognized by UNESCO as important cultural traditions.

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. The huehuetlatolli, or “speech of the elders,” passed down storytelling through generations. 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.