An Overview of Performance Art

 Performing art involves presenting a creative act in front of a live audience, such as theater, music, or dance. The origins of performance art in the visual arts can be traced back to the dada cabarets and futurist plays of the early 1900s. Due to its frequently immaterial nature, performance in the post-war era began to resemble conceptual art. Since then, people have also used the phrase to refer to artworks that use film, video, photography, and installation-based techniques to communicate the actions of the creators, performers, or audience.

Various forms of performance art are separated into three major groups: language-based, music-based, and live art. Under language is poetry, spoken word, storytelling, and protest. Poetry and spoken word are alike because, like poetry, spoken word emphasizes cadence and rhythm.

The major difference is in how the performance is delivered. While performing poetry, poets do readings while employing standard guidelines for structuring and critical thinking. These structures include proper rhythm, rhyme scheme, and metering. The performance of poetry is mainly live.

On the other hand, spoken word performances are usually done in the form of a digital podcast or video to reach a larger audience. Performers use gestures and carefully crafted words to drive home whatever meaning they want the audience to get.

Storytelling is a way of sharing experiences. A good example of storytelling in performance art is Ted-talks. Meanwhile, since the 1960s, protest as performance art has been a powerful tool for change. Every time there is a protest, the artist does so merely to promote a cause.

Music-based performance art includes dance and musical performances. Dance is a term used to describe the human movement to move an audience during a performance. What determines the boundaries of dance are social, cultural, aesthetic, artistic, and moral considerations. They do so because the audience's perception of what dance is meant to be will ultimately determine the dancer's movements. For example, dancing ballet to an afrobeat song is like not dancing at all.

Dance performances are often choreographed (practiced and learned). However, the contemporary dancing style known as the free dance style (freestyle) appeared in nineteenth and twentieth-century performances. Live music performances are live reenactments of songs by artists. Dance and music performances are sometimes infused together, especially in modern music videos.

Live art performances are staged as works of art by an individual or group and are typically experimental and original. All performance arts possess common characteristics such as live acting and lack of rules (whatever a creator declares is art is art.). Performance art is not for sale and can be funny, surprising, entertaining, or disturbing.

Every performance artist has one or more skills that make them stand out or remain relevant in their work. The most important thing is courage. All performers must learn to control and manage anxiety to deliver an effective performance. Other important skill sets are creativity, flexibility, resilience, and self-discipline.

Performance art is typically presented to an audience in an interdisciplinary fine art context, to be watched live or through other means. It may be formed spontaneously or written - however, it's created, it is also artistic action, and it has evolved into a genre on its own.