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Components of culture symbols
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A Discussion on the Culture of the Performer
Culture is one of the most difficult things to define. Trying to fit all of the subtle nuances and colloquialisms of a people group into a ridged form often requires drastic simplification. However, for the purpose of enlightening others in regards to one’s own culture, there is no other alternative. Culture in short, as defined by the Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute, is “the following ways of life, including but not limited to: Language, Arts and Sciences, Thought, Spirituality, Social Activity, and Interaction.” To that end, the culture of the performer may be defined as the aforementioned ways of life in regards to the people group known as performers with emphasis in language, spirituality, thought, and interaction.
Language is one of the most important traits of the culture of the Performer. Theater, the most prevalent example of the performance culture, uses language to its fullest extent. Theater in and of itself is the use of language, along with sets, movement, and/or props, to convey a message or moral to its target audience. The usage of language with in the performance culture takes on more than just a social meaning. One author suggests:
…language in the theatre is generally far more "powerful", rhetorically and otherwise, than in its social usage, since it is subject to far greater compositional or oratorical constraints than in any other mode of discourse except literature or oratory itself. (Elam 147)
Language, therefore, takes on a significant role in the culture of the performer. By coming up against obstacles such as the duration of a performance, the target audience’s ability to understand, and in some cases, constraints of reality, language be...
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"Definition of Culture." Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute Promoting Cultural Understanding through Education & Communication. The Roshan Center for Persian Studies at the University of Maryland, 2001. Web. 04 Dec. 2011.
Elam, Keir. "Language in the Theater." SubStance. 18/19 ed. Vol. 6/7. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin, 1977. 139-61. Print. Theater in France: Ten Years of Research (Winter, 1977 - Spring, 1978).
Isherwood, Charles. "Theater Review - 'Mourning Becomes Electra' - Blood and Guts and O’Neill at the Acorn Theater - NYTimes.com." Theater - The New York Times. The New York Times, 20 Feb. 2009. Web. 06 Dec. 2011.
"The Origins of Theatre - The First Plays (continued)." PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. PBS: Public Broadcasting Service, unknown. Web. 06 Dec. 2011.
"improvising." Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. Web. 07 Dec. 2011
Olive, David. "Possibilities of Performance: New Ways of Teaching Dramatic Literature." Links & Letters 2 (1995): 9-17. UAB Digital Repository of Documents. Web. 30 Mar. 2012.
Pause for a second and think about a play or musical that you have seen. Consider the plot, whether you liked it or not and if the experience was positive or negative. Think about the characters, the costumes, and the emotions that were emitted. The discourse community of theatre is unique in the way that it is so complex and there are many different parts that ultimately come together to create a dynamic whole. The term discourse community is rather broad, but John Swales in his article “The Concept of Discourse Community” gives six characteristics that define it. Swales lists them saying,
The duration and cost of the production have been compared to other media which provide entertainment, such as television and film. A theatre performance is more expensive to attend than cinema. The play only lasted for 85 minutes, a film can go on for two hours or even more. This can have a big influence on why people would choose one medium over the other. Accessibility has also to be taken into account when investigating the relevance of theatre in the 21st century. Television is a medium which can be accessed from home, and usually doesn’t cost a lot of money, whereas theatre costs money and is harder to access. Although the production was Australian, the actors talked with an American accent. Bearing in mind that the play was written in America, which could make it harder for an Australian audience to familiarise with the dilemmas going on, on stage, while the themes discussed seem to be more relevant there than in Australia. Overall this play doesn’t contribute to the relevance of Australian theatre in the 21st century, due to the many other sources people can access for entertainment, and because the play seems to be more relevant for an American audience rather than an
Lately, it would be difficult to find a person who speaks in the elaborate way that nearly all of Shakespeare’s characters do; we do not describe “fortune” as “outrageous” or describe our obstacles as “slings and arrows,” neither in an outward soliloquy or even in our heads. Lately, people do not declare their goals in the grandiose fashion that members of royal family of Thebes proclaim their opposing intentions: Antigone’s to honor her brother and Kreon’s to uphold his decree. Lately, people do not all speak in one unified dialect, especially not one that belongs specifically to the British upper class; Jack and Algernon’s dialogue is virtually identical, excepting content. Unlike the indistinguishably grandiose, elaborate, fancy way characters speak in Shakespeare’s plays, Antigone, The Importance of Being Earnest, and other plays written before the turn of the twentieth century, more recently written plays contain dialogue that is more unique to its speaker. This unique dialogue indicates a change in the sort of characters which drama focuses on which came with a newly developed openness to those who are different from us. Moving away from recounting tales of nobility, royalty or deities brought the lives of a common, heterogeneous populace to the stage and, with these everyday stories, more varied speech patterns.
Theatre Journal 37.4 (1985): 426-439. Print. Wheeler, Kip. " Literary Terms and Definitions M." Literary Terms and Definitions "M" Carson-Newman University, n.d. Web. 12 May 2014.
Russell Brown, J. 1995. The Oxford Illustrated History of the Theatre. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
The performances included opera-styled singing with intricate hand gestures. I used to think that the Chinese theater performances my grandparents watched on TV were too over-the-top and unnatural, but after reading about the history and meanings behind Chinese theater, I’ve developed a new perspective on the style and have come to admire the beauty of cultural differences in theatrical arts. Chinese theater’s “traditional performance” features a synthesis of poetry, singing, and dancing. In present day, “traditional performance” has undergone an improvement toward what can be termed “characterization performance,” which emphasizes the performer’s internal experience of the character played and the artistically truthful portrayal of feelings and thoughts (cite). Different cultures contribute to the varying theater styles. For example, “chinese playgoers are familiar with the stories, characters, and conventions...the objective of the Chinese performer is to meet the high expectations of the playgoers” (cite). Thus, Chinese performers are more conscious of ensuring that their gestures and body movements appear aesthetically beautiful to satisfy their audiences’ expectations. The knowledge of the diverse approaches of theater in different regions is significant for respecting a theater piece, because theater from different cultures than one’s own should be evaluated and appreciated with the viewpoint of that
Worthen, William B. Modern Drama and the Rhetoric of Theater. Berkeley: U of California P, 1992.
In this paper, I will be focusing briefly on my knowledge and understanding of the concept of Applied theatre and one of its theatre form, which is Theatre in Education. The term Applied Theatre is a broad range of dramatic activity carried out by a crowd of diverse bodies and groups.
Garner Jr., Stanton B. "Theatricality In Mankind And Everyman." Studies In Philology 84.3 (1987): 272. Academic Search Complete. Web. 4 Apr. 2012.
Culture is the whole system of ideas, action and result of the work of human beings in the frame work of the life of the community. Culture includes everything that is reserved, and his sense of hu...
Greek and Elizabethan theatre, while similar in some respects, had a few large differences. The Greeks believed in a certain unity of theme, which was prevalent throughout the production. Greek plays were often drawn from myth or of historical significance, so it seems that only ki...
Theatre as we know it now was born more than two thousand years ago and has gone through many streams until it reached the current modernity. Among these streams is the avant-garde theatre. This theatre achieved a break in the traditional theatre and became the forefront of a new experimental theatre. Therefore it is necessary to ask how this theatre started, what impact it had on society and if this type of theatre is still common in our modern era.
For as long as humankind exists, theatre will always take on an important function within its cultures. Through theatre, a culture expresses itself, reflects its society, and displays its individuality. It invites people to experience other cultures.
Culture is the totality of learned, socially transmitted customs, knowledge, material objects and behavior. It includes the ideas, value, customs and artifacts of a group of people (Schaefer, 2002). Culture is a pattern of human activities and the symbols that give these activities significance. It is what people eat, how they dress, beliefs they hold and activities they engage in. It is the totality of the way of life evolved by a people in their attempts to meet the challenges of living in their environment, which gives order and meaning to their social, political, economic, aesthetic and religious norms and modes of organization thus distinguishing people from their neighbors.