Types of performing arts

Performing arts include dance, music, opera, theatre, magic, Spoken word, circus arts and musical theatre.

Artists who participate in performing arts in front of an audience are called performers, including actors, comedians, dancers, magicians,
musicians, and singers. Performing arts are also supported by workers in related fields, such as songwriting and stagecraft.

Performers often adapt their appearance, such as with costumes and stage makeup, etc.

There is also a specialized form of fine art in which the artists perform their work live to an audience. This is called performance art. Most
performance art also involves some form of plastic art, perhaps in the creation of props. Dance was often referred to as a plastic art during the
Modern dance era.

Theatre

Main article: Theatre

A scene from The Nutcracker ballet (Watch).

Theatre is the branch of the performing arts concerned with acting out stories in front of an audience using combinations of speech, gesture,
music, dance, sound and spectacle—indeed any one or more elements of the other performing arts. In addition to the standard narrative dialogue
style of plays, theatre takes such forms as plays, musicals, opera, ballet, illusion, mime, classical Indian dance, kabuki, mummers' plays,
improvisational theatre, stand-up comedy, pantomime, and non-conventional or arthouse theatre.

Dance

Dance (from Old French dancier, perhaps from Frankish) generally refers to human movement either used as a form of expression or presented in
a social, spiritual or performance setting.

Dance is also used to describe methods of non-verbal communication (see body language) between humans or animals (bee dance, mating
dance), motion in inanimate objects (the leaves danced in the wind), and certain music genres.

Choreography is the art of making dances, and the person who does this is called a choreographer.

Definitions of what constitutes dance are dependent on social, cultural, aesthetic artistic and moral constraints and range from functional
movement (such as folk dance) to codified, virtuoso techniques such as ballet. In sports, gymnastics, figure skating, and synchronized swimming
are dance disciplines while martial arts "kata" are often compared to dances.

4 Basic Sculpture Techniques

Sculptors primarily use four basic techniques. The processes are either subtractive (material is removed or carved out) or additive (material is
added)

Carving: Carving involves cutting or chipping away a shape from a mass of stone, wood, or other hard material. Carving is a subtractive process
whereby material is systematically eliminated from the outside in.

Casting: Sculptures that are cast are made from a material that is melted down—usually a metal—that is then poured into a mold. The mold is
allowed to cool, thereby hardening the metal, usually bronze. Casting is an additive process.

Modeling: Modeled sculptures are created when a soft or malleable material (such as clay) is
built up (sometimes over an armature) and shaped to create a form. Modeling is an additive
process.

Assembling: Sculptors gather and join different materials to create an assembled sculpture. Assembling is an additive process. An example of
assemblage is Martin Puryear's That Profile, above.

Sculpture is the act and art of making three-dimensional works of art such as statues. A statue is an image such as a person or animal that is
sculpted in a solid substance. The Statue of Liberty and Rodin's The Thinker are two well-known statues.
Sculptures may be carved, chiseled, modeled, cast, or constructed. They can be made of many different materials such as wood, stone, clay,
metal, sand, ice, and even balloons. A person who creates sculpture is called an sculptor.

Sculptors use many different materials in their work such as stone, bronze, clay, iron, steel, paper, metal, marble, wood, soap, chocolate, butter,
balloons, ice, snow, and sand. There are many end products including carousels, dolls, animals, action figures, mobiles, and kinetic sculptures.
These pieces of art maybe placed inside or outside. Gargoyles on building ledges and sculpture gardens are two examples of outside sculptures.

Sculptures are often thematic on topics such as wildlife, religion, tradition, or fun. Many people create sculptures from found objects such as
recycled materials. New technologies are used to create interesting artwork that includes computers, holograms, and light. Wonderful examples of
sculpture can be found throughout the world. Sculpture has been an important part of culture since ancient times.

Four processes are used in sculpture, including: subtraction, substitution, addition, and manipulation.

Form and Function

Sculpture is a three-dimensional art form that provides an important visual way of understanding form and space. What will always remain the
concern of the sculptor is the manipulation of a solid, material body, whether stone, wood, clay or bronze. Whatever its form or shape, whether
figurative or abstract, sculpture functions to make us aware of our environment, our space within it and our special connection and relationship
within this shared space.

There are many types sculpture: portrait busts, allegorical and equestrian figures, funerary, garden sculpture, figurines. Public sculpture has
traditionally been associated with commemorative monuments or architectural sculpture. Abstraction and assemblage are the dominant forms of
modern sculpture. Yet it seems that the human form remains a consistent concern for the sculptor; a concern that re-emerges time and again and
confirms man's innate need to fashion his or her own image.

Sculpture functions as an integral part of many ceremonies and events. Often unnoticed, it gives us a visual reference for our emotional
experiences throughout the passages of life. Tombstones, for example, are a form of sculpture commemorating death, a universal event.

Materials

Sculpture can be made from many different types of materials. You may know many famous works in marble such as the Venus de Milo and
Michelangelo's David. The voluminous carvings of the Haida or Northwest Coast Native totem poles and many interior church sculptures are
sculpted from wood. Boccioni's Unique Forms in Space as well as Rodin's famous statue of The Thinker from the Gates of Hell are all cast in
bronze, and were all first shaped in clay. Different sculptors prefer to use different materials. The types of materials often directly effect the
composition. A hard and heavy material like stone can chip or break. Therefore a work in stone may be more compactly designed. Lighter, more
malleable materials such as bronze allow for dynamism and permit the artist greater liberties with the composition of the work. Many other
materials are integral to the casting process; such as clay, metal armature, plaster and wax, among others.

Processes and Techniques

Processes in sculpting vary, and always depend on the materials used. There is cast sculpture, where a material, such as bronze, begins as a clay
form that is cast in a mould to produce a given shape; there is also carved sculpture, such as wood or stone. Two distinct methods have emerged;
an additive process, where material is added again and again to build up the form, for example with clay, and the subtractive process, where the
artist removes or subtracts materials to create the form, as in marble or stone carving.

Sculpture may be free standing (sometimes referred to as sculpture in the round even if it is a square shape), often on a pedestal or base where
you can walk around it, or relief, where raised forms project from a background or surface. There is low relief, where the figure emerges at a level
closer to the surface; and high relief, where the figure may almost be completely detached from the surface or ground. Types of representation
and composition in reliefs are defined by their need for the ground plane on which the forms are superimposed or from which they emerge. Relief
can be carved in wood or stone; molded in clay or wax; cast in metal, plaster or resin.

Clay Sculpture

Since early time man has used clay to shape and build, sometimes for practical and much needed items such as shelter, bowls and other everyday
necessities. These everyday necessities were sometimes simple and made to serve the need, but occasionally they were artwork in themselves.
Clay eventually grew as a form of art because of it's abundance and ease of expression. Even today, the uses of this ancient medium are vast.

Wood Carving

Wood carving is a simple technique. Depending on the size and type of wood being used, it might be carved with knives, or a wooden mallet
would be used to strike a chisel cutting away bits of wood till the artist has shaped the form his mind sought.

Stone Carving
Carving as an activity has remained unchanged since man first started hewing away at stone to fashion images. The process, while more difficult,
is the same as in wood. The artist chisels away at the stone, piece by piece until they find the figure they seek. During the Renaissance this
technique was refined by the pointing system, but otherwise the art remains much the same as it was in ancient times.

Metal Working

Metal sculpture can be created by one of many methods, or even a combination of methods. Sculpture can be created by cutting metals with
shears and snips, by firing and hammering metals, or by joining metals with sheet metal screws, rivets and soldering. More advanced techniques
involve brazing, oxyacetylene welding, arc and heli-arc welding and fabrication of more complex forms.

Wax Sculpture

Wax sculpture is an art form that dates back to the ancient civilizations of Egypt and Greece. History documents that wax figures were sculpted
for religious ceremonies. During the Roman Empire noble families displayed wax effigies of their ancestors. In Medieval Europe it become
customary to preserve the likeness of great personages by making death masks. From the death mask molds three dimensional wax images were
created to adorn tombs and crypts. As this was a costly endeavor, this practice was reserved for royal and religious hierarchies. With the
development of a middle class during the Renaissance, the practice of preserving images in wax became more widespread.

In 18th century Paris, Marie Grosholtz became an apprentice of wax sculptures in the studio of her uncle. During the French Revolution, she was
assigned the arduous task of taking hundreds of death masks. Later she married, becoming Madame Tussaud (photo of actual wax figure left),
and with her husband established a "Wax Salon" in Paris. By 1833, she alone had established a salon in London, England.

Sculpture in Ivory

Sculpture in ivory was used by the Greeks in combination with gold for monumental works (chryselephantine technique). In the Middle Ages and
in modern times ivory is often used for works of small proportions; it is particularly suitable for delicate and pathetic subjects.

Glyptics

Glyptics, or the art of cutting gems, as well as the engraving of medals, coins, and seals, are varieties of sculpture which have a cultural rather
than an artistic and æsthetic importance.

Sculpture Terms

Aerugo : bright green rust which forms on bronze and other metals which contain copper after exposure to air or acid: The obsolete pigment
Verdigris was made of this substance.

Alabaster : soft, fine grained translucent stone: white or pastel colored gypsum, often with streaks of deeper color: breaks and scratches easily.

Allegorical figure : personification or representation which symbolizes a concept such as love, heroism, death, war, victory etc.

Alloy : mixture of metals that usually benefits from the best qualities of each of the separate ingredients. See Bronze, Steel

Architectural sculpture : an integral part of a building or sculpture created especially to decorate or embellish an architectural structure.

Armature : support, frame or structure upon or around which a sculptural form may be built: the armature for a single sculpture may be
constructed out of many different materials such as metal, wood, or plastic, sometimes with small pieces suspended from wires (called papillons).

Assemblage: technique of creating sculpture by combining various elements. Often constructed, it may include found objects (objets trouvées)
and/or elements modeled or carved by the artist. See also Construction

Bas relief: the lowest degree of relief, in which all the carving lies within the hollowed-out area below the surface plane, and through an illusion
of depth and roundness, looks like raised relief. See also Relief

Bronze: metal alloy that combines tin and copper: Bronze has been used in sculpture for over five thousand years. See also Casting

Bust: sculpted portrait or representation consisting of head and part of shoulders

Carving: subtractive process, direct method: cutting of a shape, figure or design out of a solid material such as a block of stone or wood: cutting
away material. An indirect method of carving used since the 19th century makes use of a pointing machine. See Pointing
Casting: additive process, indirect method: 1. reproducing a sculptural form: usually refers to pouring liquid plaster, metal or glass into a mold
where it hardens, in contrast to pressing a more solid material into a mold (which is called molding) 2. Cire perdue/Lost wax: used since ancient
times; method of casting metal or glass in a mold, the cavity of which, (or the positive of the form) is formed with wax which is then melted or
burned off and displaced by the molten metal or glass: the process of filling space between the core and mold after the wax layer has been melted
off through a vent when a molten material is poured into the mold: process has been used since ancient times 3. Sand casting: a process of metal
casting with foundry sand (refractory sand with binding qualities) packed around a plaster model or cast to form a mold or negative of the original
sculpture. See also Foundry, Mold

Cast Iron : iron that is remelted in a cupola or furnace and cast into specially shaped molds; cast iron is softer than steel

Cire perdue (Lost wax) technique of casting. See Casting

Clay: natural earth material with various applications in sculpture: a material that can be manipulated or molded by hand, when moist. It can be
dried in the air or fired in a kiln to make it a permanent relatively nonporous material: used for the direct process of modeling: clay models are
used for the indirect process of casting. See also Modeling Clay

Commemorative monuments : monuments with local, regional or international political, cultural or artistic significance: monuments that
commemorate a certain event

Composition : organization of forms in a work of art: in sculpture, refers principally to the balance and relation of mass, volume, shapes and
spaces

Construction : additive process, direct method: sculpture fabricated by assembling and joining a number of separate parts, rather than modeling,
casting or carving. See also Assemblage

Contrapposto : Italian word for "set against." Method developed by the Greeks to represent freedom of movement in a figure. Parts of the body
are placed asymmetrically in opposition to each other around a central axis

Copper: a malleable and ductile metal, copper combines well to make other metals such as brass and bronze: reacts with chemicals and oxygen
in the air, in most cases turning green.

Direct method: see Modeling, Carving, Construction, Assemblage.