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 spectacleindeed 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 downusually a metalthat 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 sthetic 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 trouves) 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.