Practitioners
Throughout your time on the course, you will gain knowledge on a variety of practitioners within the performing arts, and across all disciplines. BUT... It's not all reading and writing, rest assured! The best way to learn about practitioners, their styles and techniques, is by watching, listening and doing.
Have a look below at just a few examples of artists and creators who have shaped the performing arts industry that we know, and love, today:
BERTOLT BRECHT (Acting)
The playwright Bertolt Brecht was born in 1898 in the German town of Augsburg. After serving as a medical orderly in the First World War and appalled by the effects of the war, he went first to Munich and then to Berlin in pursuit of a career in the theatre. That period of his life came to an end in 1933 when the Nazis came to power in Germany. Brecht fled and during this period the Nazis formally removed his citizenship, so he was a stateless citizen.
As an artist, Brecht was influenced by a diverse range of writers and practitioners including Chinese theatre and Karl Marx. The turmoil of the times through which Brecht lived gave him a strong political voice. The opposition he faced is testament to the fact that he had the courage to express his personal voice in the world of the theatre. He also had an original and inspired talent to bring out a dynamic theatrical style to express his views.
Why not brush up on all things Brecht over at the BBC Bitesize website?
Matthew Bourne (Dance)
Most of Bourne’s choreographic works are based heavily or entirely on well-known ballets, books, films, musicals, pieces of art or compositional scores; his most famous being Swan Lake and Nutcracker! Like Edward Scissorhands, The Red Shoes joins the New Adventures canon as a work adapted from a famous film.
Bourne is renowned for creating work that attracts large audiences that is accessible for those unfamiliar with the world of dance. A new work with a familiar title encourages newcomers to the audience. Although Bourne wants audiences to feel that they have a way into the work, he also wants them to experience something new. It is not his aim to simply re-tell a story but instead to put his own spin on the narrative that provokes the audience to think and consider the story in a new light.
Bourne himself would argue that it is difficult to describe his style because of the nature of his choreographic process. He is inspired by a plethora of stimuli, eras, dance styles and references.
Why not brush up on all things Matthew Bourne over at the New Adventures website?
'Bel Canto' (singing)
Bel Canto, (Italian: “beautiful singing”) style of operatic singing that originated in Italian singing of polyphonic (multipart) music and Italian courtly solo singing during the late 16th century and that was developed in Italian opera in the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries. Using a relatively small dynamic range, bel canto singing was based on an exact control of the intensity of vocal tone, a recognition of the distinction between the “diapason tone” (produced when the larynx is in a relatively low position) and the “flute tone” (when the larynx is in a higher position), and a demand for vocal agility and clear articulation of notes and enunciation of words.
Some of the main features of the bel canto style were:
matching register and tonal quality of the voice to the emotional content of the words
a liberal application of more than one type of portamento
messa di voce as the principal source of expression (Domenico Corri called it the "soul of music" – The Singer's Preceptor, 1810, vol. 1, p. 14)
gesture as a powerful tool for enhancing the effect of the vocal delivery
vibrato primarily reserved for heightening the expression of certain words and for gracing longer notes.