Popular Theatre & Performance - Routledge Performance Archive

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Popular Theatre & Performance

Subject

Popular theatre embraces practices including melodrama, street theatre, circus, vaudeville, clowning and musicals. Historically, it encompasses both commercial and political theatre for the people.

Animals

The behaviour of animals on stage is difficult to control. Yet animals have often been used in performance, usually by artists keen to exploit these very qualities of surprise and unpredictability.

Animals subject list replace — Animals

The behaviour of animals on stage is difficult to control. Yet animals have often been used in performance, usually by artists keen to exploit these very qualities of surprise and unpredictability.

Carnival

A carnival is a popular and socially liberating street festival that usually combines music, masking or costume, dance, food, eroticism, and performances such as parades, street theatre and puppetry.

Carnival list — Carnival

A carnival is a popular and socially liberating street festival that usually combines music, masking or costume, dance, food, eroticism, and performances such as parades, street theatre and puppetry.

Circus

An emphasis on large-scale spectacle and virtuosic achievement has always been integral to circus, an influential and continually evolving popular theatre form, with its roots in early Roman times.

Circus list — Circus

An emphasis on large-scale spectacle and virtuosic achievement has always been integral to circus, an influential and continually evolving popular theatre form, with its roots in early Roman times.

Clowns & Clowning

With their historic connection to the court jester, clowns can share a similar performative function: to create an uncomfortable type of laughter in which we are implicated in social dysfunction.

Clowns — Clowns & Clowning

With their historic connection to the court jester, clowns can share a similar performative function: to create an uncomfortable type of laughter in which we are implicated in social dysfunction.

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.

Commedia subject ii thumbnail — 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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Protests, Demonstrations & Parades

Not strictly theatre, these are mass group events or performances that generally take place in public spaces in order to influence public opinion by occupying or exploiting the power of those sites.

Protests list — Protests, Demonstrations & Parades

Not strictly theatre, these are mass group events or performances that generally take place in public spaces in order to influence public opinion by occupying or exploiting the power of those sites.

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’.

Puppetry subject thumbnail — 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’.

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.

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.

Related Items

Boal, Augusto

The inventor of the internationally renowned Forum Theatre system and ‘Theatre of the Oppressed’.

Boal practitioner thumb — Boal, Augusto

The inventor of the internationally renowned Forum Theatre system and ‘Theatre of the Oppressed’.