As a critical viewer I've come to view professional performance through a lens that allows me to ask questions that give new understanding and appreciation to arts and performance. When an opinion such as "a good performance" or "a bad performance" was all I could draw from watching a professional art performance, I've now come to realize the various purposes (other than entertaining the audience) an artistic and creative expression can serve.
One of the most important aspects of performance is the audience, Aristotle and his teacher Plato wrote on the theory and practice of theatre. This theory sought to answer the "function of arts in shaping character". And while performances and engagement have changed over time, the function of the viewer, or the audience, remains as vital.
As a whole, many forms of arts and culture naturally manifest as aspects of daily human activity. When pursuing an artistic and creative expression, whether through performances or other outlets, I look for quality, leisure and originality. Artistic performance, in all its forms uses creative strategie...
Throughout the years, America has pursued the performing arts in a large variety of ways. Theatre plays a dramatic and major role in the arts of our society today, and it takes great effort in all aspects. Musical Theatre, specifically, involves a concentration and strength in dance, acting, and singing. This is the base that Musical Theatre is built upon. For my Senior Project, I helped choreograph multiple scenes in a community musical “Thoroughly Modern Millie”. Choreography is a way of expressing oneself, but it has not always been thought of for that purpose. Agnes de Mille’s expressive talent has drastically affected how people see choreography today. Agnes de Mille’s influence in the world of dance has left a lasting impact in the Performing Arts Department, and her revolutionary works are still known today for their wit, lyricism, emotion, and charm.
What started out as a hobby transformed into a passion for an art form that allows me to use movements and expressions to tell a story. Whether I’m on stage in front of an audience of just friends and family, hundreds of strangers and a panel of judges, or the whole school, performing over thirty times, has helped me build lifelong
...re as same as the audience use in their everyday life. Easily connecting to the audience, with visual, audio and performer’s performance” one can imagine himself/herself in performer’s shoes.
Over the course of his career, Brecht developed the criteria for and conditions needed to create Epic Theatre. The role of the audience can be likened to that of a group of college aged students or intellectuals. Brecht believed in the intelligence of his audience, and their capacity for critical analysis. He detested the trance-like state that an Aristotelian performance can lure the audience into. Plays that idealize life and humanity are appealing to an audience, and this makes it easy for them to identify with the hero, they reach a state of self oblivion. The spectator becomes one with the actor, and experiences the same fantastical climax that is unattainable in real life.
Thom, P (1992), For an Audience: A Philosophy of the Performing Arts (Arts and Their Philosophies), Temple University Press
With regards to the role of the theatre, and of it audience, Stanislavski viewed theatre as a means of artistically expressing things, and that the audience's role was to 'look in' on the action on the stage. He favoured the idea of the 'fourth wall' which separated the audience and the actors, to re-create total realism on the stage. He wanted the audience to feel the pain or joy of the actor, and that watching a performance would have brought out a feeling of empathy.
Spectacle can be defined as “visually striking performance or display”. It is directly associated with the eyes, the act of viewing or looking at something. In regards to theatre spectacle serves as the middle man between the eyes and the senses of the individual spectator. The response to spectacle varies based on the spectator. The appeal of spectacle is conceived from its ability to captivate the audience and grab hold of the viewer’s gaze. This can be done with the presentation of violence, admiration, sorrow etc. It is able to produce unnatural tension. According to Aristotle, for a tragedy to reach its “finest form” it must arouse fear and pity. With the use of Euripides’s Medea I
... a way for audiences and performers to connect on a closer level. They are both experiencing the surreal, disassociating themselves from the performance taking place. They both become more introspective. The performance becomes a vehicle for self-understanding, metacognition.
“Theatre makes us think about power and the way our society works and it does this with a clear purpose, to make a change.”
Theatre serves to reflect society. From Shakespeare to Sophocles, a playwright’s work illustrates the different mechanics within a culture or time period or society. Theatre offers viewers the experience of taking a step back and looking in on themselves. In this way, theatre is a mirror for the world and the way it functions.
The sixth and least important in Aristotle’s point of view is that of Spectacle, or costumes and props. This is the least important because Aristotle believes that the plot will overcome all the rest. Although Aristotle recognizes the emotional attraction of spectacle, he argues that superior poets rely on the inner structure of the play rather than spectacle to arouse pity and fear; those who rely heavily on spectacle “create a sense, not of the terrible, but only of the monstrous”(http://www.cnr.edu/home/).
Authentic assessment, though sometimes referred to as performance-based assessment is not a new idea, in fact its history dates back to the 1950’s. With more than half a century of debate on the subject in varying branches of thought, this paper will focus on a few of the key concepts of authentic assessment as seen through the lens of an artist. An investigation of the literature begins with a brief look at the historical concept of mastery as was practiced through the ancient system of patronage, workshops, and guilds. The discussion that follows will examine the theoretical thought on authentic assessment and the implications for practice.
Theatre will always survive in our changing society. It provides us with a mirror of the society within which we live, and where conflicts we experience are acted out on stage before us. It provides us with characters with which we identify with. The audience observes the emotions and actions as they happen and share the experience with the characters in real time.
For thousands of years, people have been arguing that theatre is a dying art form. Many people think theatre is all just cheesy singing and dancing or just boring old Shakespeare, but there is much more to theatre than those two extremes. Theatre is important to our society because it teaches us more about real life than recorded media. Theatre has been around for thousands of years and began as a religious ceremony that evolved into an art form that teaches about the true essence of life. Theatre can incorporate profound, and provocative, observations of the human condition that can transcend time; lessons found in Greek plays can still be relevant to the modern world. People argue that the very essence of theatre is being snuffed out by modern
A mere mention of the term theatre acts as a relief to many people. It is in this place that a m...