Performing Arts - History of Western Performing Arts

History of Western Performing Arts

Starting in the 6th century BC, the Classical period of performing art began in Greece, ushered in by the tragic poets such as Sophocles. These poets wrote plays which, in some cases, incorporated dance (see Euripides). The Hellenistic period began the widespread use of comedy.

However by the 6th century AD, Western performing arts had been largely ended, as the Dark Ages began. Between the 9th century and 14th century, performing art in the West was limited to religious historical enactments and morality plays, organized by the Church in celebration of holy days and other important events.

Read more about this topic:  Performing Arts

Famous quotes containing the words performing arts, history of, history, western, performing and/or arts:

    “More than in any other performing arts the lack of respect for acting seems to spring from the fact that every layman considers himself a valid critic.”
    —Uta Hagen (b. 1919)

    “The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality.”
    —Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)

    “We are told that men protect us; that they are generous, even chivalric in their protection. Gentlemen, if your protectors were women, and they took all your property and your children, and paid you half as much for your work, though as well or better done than your own, would you think much of the chivalry which permitted you to sit in street-cars and picked up your pocket- handkerchief?”
    —Mary B. Clay, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)

    “I wouldn’t say when you’ve seen one Western you’ve seen the lot; but when you’ve seen the lot you get the feeling you’ve seen one.”
    —Katharine Whitehorn (b. 1926)

    “And no one, it seemed, had had the presence of mind
    To initiate proceedings or stop the wheel
    From the number it was backing away from as it stopped:
    It was performing prettily; the puncture stayed unseen....”
    —John Ashbery (b. 1927)

    “As far as the arts and the sciences are concerned, the German mind appreciates most highly that which it does not understand of the latter, and that which it does not enjoy of the former.”
    —Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)