PERFORMING ARTS

Performing Arts – Commedia dell’Arte

This term our Year 8 Performing Arts students are learning about Commedia dell’Arte. Commedia dell’Arte is an early style of Italian theatre that is responsible for the popularisation of improvised and scripted comedy. The performances comprised of stock characters and comical interludes that appeared in each performance and paved the way for archetype characters we see in modern theatre and film. You can often link many characters in modern performances such as Shakespeare, Chaplin, Sit-coms, even the Lion King to characters in Commedia. The students have been conducting research on a stock character of their choice, this includes looking at the production side of theatre by exploring mask making. Pictured are some of the masks they have constructed.