E. Kiseyeva

Musical and choreographic performance as the topical form of musical theatre

The article studies one of the important forms of contemporary music theatre that is performance art. The focus of the author is the artistic experience of American composers and choreographers. The article noted the specific properties of performance art as the form of representation which is alternative to academic spectacle. The author marks music and choreographic art performances to be influence by new media art, and analyzes the principles of interaction between music and dance. The creative concept by greatest choreographers of the postmodern are considered through the prism of the main currents of music culture in the second half of the twentieth century. The performance art examples discussed in the article are one of the most striking forms of American musical theatre, as the period of 1960–1970s was a crisis for the traditional genres of opera and ballet. These traditional genres were perceived as outdated and conservative. The emergence of new theatrical forms was due to the protest of artists against traditional music, in particular opera, as its existence in the postmodern era seemed to be pointless. The ballet was not perceived so sharply, but was associated more with the trend of traditions’ “farewell words” rather than finding something new. Such image of ballet was shown by the prevailing neo-classic tendency.

Key words

musical theater of the last third of the XX century, musical and choreographic performance.

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