Subjects

Form & Genre

Subject

Form and genre are terms that are often used interchangeably. Whilst form is more often about structure and genre is more to do with typology, forms and genres of theatre and performance vary and transform in relation to their temporal and geographical context.  The term genre is used to categorise different types or kinds of work that share certain stylistic characteristics. In theatre and performance contexts, genre is an umbrella term under which the form – a play as a form of literature for example – might be categorised by its genre as naturalist, realist, comedy, tragedy, tragicomedy and so on.  Genres are created and mutate through time and are often hybrid: here an example such as tragicomedy is typical, where elements of tragedy and comedy combined to create a new genre during the Renaissance period in Europe. The definitions of performance genres are often blurred so that, for example, what constitutes performance art in one context might be classified as live art in another.  Typically, terms such as 'postmodern performance' might be used to describe a genre of performance where common elements of strategy, technique, aesthetic and practice are fewer than the differences between examples.  In other words, definitions of genre can be too generalised to be useful on some occasions. Equally, whilst an art or performance work might be described as one genre it may share many characteristics with another.

Image: Odin Teatret Archives. Performance (rehearsal): The Chronic Life. Director: Eugenio Barba. Photo: Jan Rüsz

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Commedia dell’Arte
Commedia dell’arte is a performance form that originated in Italy during the 16th century. It is based on highly physical improvised performance around sketches or scenarios, with stock characters.
Dada list view
Dada
Pioneered by a trans-European group of artists, Dada is an ‘anti-art’ form that came into being in 1916, partly as a deliberately illogical response to the perceived irrationality of World War One.
Environ subject list
Environmental Theatre
Environmental theatre, like site-specific work, aims to alter the conventional spatial practices of performance and to enhance the performance’s engagement with its space and site of production.
Merlin asset list view
Expressionism
The term ‘expressionism’ describes a radical style of visual art that aimed to express emotion non-naturalistically, in violent protest against the perceived bourgeois repression of naturalism.
Intercultural list view
Intercultural Theatre & Performance
‘Interculturalism’ describes cultural interaction which combines the methods of one culture with those of others. In practice, this often means the influence of non-Western traditions on Western art.
Kathakali list
Kathakali
Kathakali dance-drama is a distinctive genre of South Asian performance which developed during the 16th and 17th centuries in the Malayalam-speaking coastal region of south-west India, Kerala State.
Dramaturgy subject list view
Laboratory Theatre
Applied to theatre practice, the term ‘Laboratory’, commonly associated with Grotowski, is used to denote concentrated and consistent experiment as being at the root of the theatre-making process.
Expressionism subject list view
Modernist Theatre
Modernist theatre includes works considered as naturalist, symbolist, surrealist, futurist, Dadaist or expressionist, by writers such as Ibsen and Strindberg, created between the 1880s and the 1930s.
Multimedia list
Multimedia Theatre & Performance
While it can describe theatre and performance that incorporates dance and music, multimedia performance more commonly specifies work that mixes live performance with machines and/or mediated forms.
Scenography list view
Naturalism & Realism
In theatre, naturalism and realism refer specifically to the representation of real life on stage, using believable characters, narrative action and plot, to mimetically holding up a mirror to nature.
Paratheatre list
Paratheatre
Para literally means ‘beyond’. In theatre practice, paratheatre therefore lies outside and beyond the spatial, temporal and structural forms of performance, denoting related practices instead.
Postmodernism and Performance list
Postmodernism & Performance
Challenging ideas of coherent identity, universal value and truth as not only impossible but also duplicitous, postmodernism explores how meaning is always multiple and contingent on contexts.
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Puppetry
In performance, what separates puppets from art objects, or curios hung on a domestic or art gallery wall, is the puppeteer or performer’s ability to manipulate the object and thus bring it to ‘life’.
Site-Specific subject list view
Site-Specific Performance
Site-specific performance is produced in non-theatre sites, and aims to engage with the meaning and history or creative impetus of those sites, and reach audiences who might not come to the theatre.
Street Theatre subject list view
Street Theatre
Many performance traditions have involved parades and displays in streets, towns or village squares, and the majority of these performances have been constructed with this spatial context in mind.
Theatre Oppressed 2 list
Theatre of the Oppressed
Coined by Augusto Boal, this term has been adopted internationally to denote a way of creating theatre and conducting paratheatrical work to achieve his aims of social franchisement and agency.