Canary Islands PAU Performing Arts II cheat sheet
Canary Islands PAU Performing Arts II · Keep the key ideas within reach.
Fundamentals of the Performing Arts: Theatrical Language, Dramatic Structure and Genre
Aristotle's six elements of tragedy, in order of importance: mythos (plot), ethos (character), dianoia (thought), lexis (diction), melos (song), opsis (spectacle).
Freytag's pyramid: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, denouement (catastrophe in tragedy).
Story vs. plot (fabula/syuzhet): story is chronological raw material; plot is the artistically arranged causal sequence.
Conflict types: internal (character vs. self), interpersonal, and extra-personal (vs. society, nature, fate, technology).
Genre pairs by outcome: tragedy ends in irreversible loss; comedy ends in renewed social integration (marriage, reconciliation).
Tragicomedy mixes registers; the term is documented from Plautus's Amphitryon prologue and theorized by Guarini in Il pastor fido (1590).
Three unities (Aristotle-derived, codified by Castelvetro 1570): action, place, time (a single circuit of the sun).
Dramatic irony: the audience knows what the character does not; verbal irony is spoken, situational irony is structural.
Peripeteia (reversal) and anagnorisis (recognition) are the two mechanisms Aristotle identifies for tragic effect.
History of Theatre and Performing Arts: From Antiquity to the Present
Greek theatre: Great Dionysia in Athens from c. 534 BCE; three tragedians competed; the chorus numbered 12 then 15; actors (hypokritai) were limited to three.
Aristophanes (Old Comedy, political satire) vs. Menander (New Comedy, domestic plots later adapted by Plautus and Terence).
Medieval Europe: liturgical drama, mystery cycles (York, Chester, Wakefield), morality plays (Everyman), and farces; performed on pageant wagons or in church.
Commedia dell'arte (Italy, mid-16th c.): masked stock types (Arlecchino, Pantalone, Dottore), lazzi, scenario-based improvisation; influence on Molière and Goldoni.
Spanish Golden Age: corrales de comedias, Lope de Vega's Arte nuevo de hacer comedias (1609) codifying the comedia nueva; Calderón's auto sacramentales.
Elizabethan/Jacobean public amphitheatres (The Globe, 1599) vs. private indoor hall playhouses with artificial light.
French neoclassicism: Académie française (1635), Malherbe's rules, Corneille's Le Cid quarrel (1637), Racine's tragedy of passion.
Modern turning points: Wagner's Gesamtkunstwerk and Bayreuth (1876); naturalism (Zola, Antoine's Théâtre Libre 1887); symbolism; Brecht's epic theatre and Verfremdungseffekt; Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty.
Text, Dramaturgy and Staging: From Dramatic Text to the Stage
Dramaturgy operates on three levels: textual analysis, production dramaturgy (research, adaptation), and institutional dramaturgy (season planning).
Didascalia (stage directions) are paratextual; their status as performable instruction vs. literary description is a classic dramaturgical question.
Fable/plot extraction: identify the spine (through-line), the given circumstances, and the events that force change.
Dramatic vs. epic text: dramatic text implies present-tense action; epic text narrates and can be adapted for stage as narrative theatre.
Adaptation strategies: transposition (setting change), reduction (cutting subplots), expansion (adding material), and radical reworking (intertextual rewriting).
The 'open' vs. 'closed' text (Eco): closed texts dictate interpretation; open texts invite directorial and audience co-authorship.
Table work (lecture work) precedes blocking: actors analyze text, beats, objectives, and units of action before staging.
Dramaturg's deliverable: a production dossier including text version, translation notes, context, and rehearsal questions.
Acting, Direction and Stagecraft: Performance, Mise-en-Scène and Production
Stanislavski's system: given circumstances, magic if, objectives, super-objective, through-line of action, emotional memory; later 'method of physical actions'.
Meyerhold's biomechanics and constructivist staging; Vakhtangov's fantastic realism; Chekhov technique (psychological gesture).
Brechtian acting: the actor demonstrates rather than becomes; gestus, alienation, direct address, and historicization.
Grotowski's poor theatre: elimination of non-essential elements, via negativa, and the actor's score.
Mise-en-scène components: composition, blocking, focus, rhythm, tempo, and the relationship between stage space and audience.
Rehearsal phases: read-through, blocking/staging, working runs, technical rehearsals (cue-to-cue, tech/dress), previews, opening.
The prompt book (regiebuch) records blocking, cues, and production notes; the stage manager runs the performance from it.
Production hierarchy: producer (finance), director (artistic unity), stage manager (logistics), technical director (build), designers (visual/aural).
Scenography, Costume, Lighting and Sound: Visual and Technical Space
Scenography differs from set design: it encompasses the whole visual and spatial environment including light, costume, and sound.
Stage types: proscenium arch, thrust, arena/theatre-in-the-round, black box/flexible, and found/site-specific space; each defines sightlines and audience relationship.
Costume functions: character, period, status, symbolic color, and practical movement; quick-change and fitting logistics affect design.
Lighting fundamentals: key, fill, back light; intensity, color (gels), direction, quality (hard/soft), and focus; DMX512 is the standard digital control protocol.
Lighting design documents: light plot, channel hookup, cue sheet, and focus chart.
Sound design: reinforcement (amplification) vs. design (effects, atmosphere, music); signal chain from source to mixer, processor, amplifier, speakers.
Safety: load-in/load-out rigging requires rated hardware, secondary safety cables, and inspection; electrical work follows local codes.
Projection and video mapping (media scenography) use projection surfaces, edge blending, and cue synchronization with lighting or show control.
Music, Dance and the Body in the Performing Arts
Music theatre forms: opera (through-composed), operetta, zarzuela (Spanish lyric genre with spoken dialogue), musical, and Singspiel.
Dance vocabulary: ballet (classical technique, codified positions), modern/contemporary, flamenco (cante, toque, baile; palos such as soleá, bulería, seguiriya), and folk forms.
Body as instrument: Laban's effort qualities (weight, time, space, flow) and LMA (Laban Movement Analysis) describe movement dynamics.
Choreographic devices: repetition, canon, mirroring, retrograde, accumulation, and spatial patterning.
Rhythm and meter: time signature, tempo, syncopation; dance counts and musical phrases must align in rehearsal.
Vocal technique: breath support (diaphragmatic), resonance, diction, and register (chest, mixed, head); musical theatre 'belt' vs. legit.
Conductor vs. musical director: conductor leads performance beat; MD rehearses singers, coordinates with director.
Canarian musical heritage: el tajaraste, el vivo, la isa, la folía; instruments such as timple, guitar, and chácaras.
Contemporary Performative Practices and New Media
Performance art (from 1960s): body, time, space, and audience presence; key figures include Marina Abramović, Carolee Schneemann, and Orlan.
Happenings (Allan Kaprow, 1959) are event-based, participatory, and non-repeatable; Fluxus intersects with them.
Site-specific and immersive theatre: audience moves through the space; examples include Punchdrunk's immersive formats.
Digital performance: live cinema, telematic performance, motion capture, VR/AR, and interactive/game-based dramaturgy.
Documentation and liveness: Peggy Phelan argues performance disappears in its enactment; Philip Auslander contests the live/mediated binary.
Intermediality: combining live bodies with video, projection, sensors, and real-time software (e.g., Max/MSP, TouchDesigner).
Participatory and relational practices (Nicolas Bourriaud's relational aesthetics) shift authorship toward the audience.
Ethics and consent in participatory work: informed consent, boundaries, and duty of care are production requirements.
Reception, Criticism and Analysis of Performance
Theatre semiotics (Barthes, Ubersfeld): the performance is a sign system; signifier/signified, denotation/connotation apply to staging elements.
Reader-response and reception theory (Iser, Jauss): meaning is produced in the encounter between text/performance and spectator; horizon of expectations.
Review vs. criticism vs. scholarship: review is timely and evaluative; criticism is analytical; scholarship is peer-reviewed and contextual.
Performance analysis framework: describe (what happened), analyze (how it signified), interpret (what it meant), evaluate (how well it worked).
Audience research methods: surveys, focus groups, box-office data, and observation; triangulation strengthens validity.
Key critics and theorists: Eric Bentley, Kenneth Tynan, and in Spain, critics writing for ABC, El País, and specialized journals.
Theatrical reception in Spain: the Premios Max, Premios Nacionales de Teatro, and the role of the Red de Teatros network in touring.
Canarian theatrical heritage: Pérez Galdós (born Las Palmas, 1843) wrote plays including Electra (1901); the Teatro Pérez Galdós is a key venue; Canarian playwrights and companies form a distinct regional scene.