Curtain Up Beijing National Performing Arts Centre Welcome
Curtain Up! Beijing National Performing Arts Centre Welcome to the Theatre!
What are some functions of theatre? • Entertains – Allows for enjoyment, can be humorous or moving • Educates – Gives people vicarious experiences, encouraging tolerance and understanding • Catharsis – Releases negative emotions and heals emotional wounds • Revenue – Contributes to the economy through wages and sales revenues
Why do colleges & universities want you to study Theatre? • It’s found in virtually every human culture in all ages • It’s a way of understanding the world around us and our position in it • The impulse to be transformed is fundamental to our human nature
Mystery Plays
Mystery Plays
The Globe Theatre
Beijing Opera
Beijing Opera
Aesthetics and Pleasure • Mystical communion with “higher element” or “beauty” in the divine sense – Also, “elegance” • “Truths” about human existence are revealed – Sudden clarity of “cosmic order” • Delight in patterns through recognition of balance, repetition, rhythm, etc. – Musical preferences in children favor consonance rather than dissonance
Convergent/Divergent Thinking • Convergent Thinking – seeks absolute answers, intolerant of vagueness; the purpose of gathering information is to reach a solution • Divergent Thinking – flexible, looks for possibilities, tolerates uncertainty • Provisional Thinking • open to possibilities in order to reach a conclusion
Closure as Ally and Enemy • Ally – Creates a desire to understand; makes us alert and interested so that we will gather information and seek an answer • Enemy – May pressure us to conclude, causing us to dismiss data prematurely or even invent data to satisfy our predetermined conclusion
What are Different Ways to Study Theatre? • Dramatic Literature – Read plays and extrapolate to theatre art • History – Examine events, architecture, development & society • Theatre Craft – Research theatre artists/collaborators & their jobs • Spectator Skills – Learn critical viewing skills through participation as a spectator
Levels of Understanding • Discursive – a reviewer does this – The level of factual information (not just who, what, when, where, etc. but also how this is being relayed) – analytical reasoning • Integrative – a critic works at this level, usually with a valuative judgment – The level of meaning (idea, thought) – we extrapolate from the discursive level and synthesize the information to find meaning • Extrapolation - To take understanding from one thing in application to another
Theatre vs. Film Theatre • • Live performance Never the same Enactment speed Risky – audience is vulnerable to direct interaction Film • Mediated performance • Remains the same • Can be rewound, fastforwarded, halted, etc. • Film audiences observe patterns of light and need not worry about confrontation with actors
Vocabulary • Continuum – a range of possibilities between two extremes or opposites • Theatrical Convention – a “rule” established in the performance context, the meaning of which theatre makers and theatre audience agree upon • Paradigm – an understanding about the world or a particular subject; world view
What are some negative stereotypes regarding theatre? • Frivolous – Theatre doesn’t produce a real product • Exclusive – Only for the rich and intellectual elite • Apathy – No one really cares about theatre • Immoral – Lifestyles of theatre artists are outside the mainstream • Subversive – Should be banned because it portrays alternatives
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