Performing arts center/centre (see

spelling differences Despite the various English dialects spoken from country to country and within different regions of the same country, there are only slight regional variations in English orthography, the two most notable variations being British and American ...

), often abbreviated as PAC, is used to refer to: * A multi-use performance space that is intended for use by various types of the

performing arts The performing arts are arts such as music, dance, and drama which are performed for an audience. They are different from the visual arts, which are the use of paint, canvas or various materials to create physical or static art objects. Perfo ...

, including

dance Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoire ...

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...

and

theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perfor ...

. :The intended multiple use of performing arts centers in this sense differentiates them from single-purpose

concert halls A concert hall is a cultural building with a stage that serves as a performance venue and an auditorium filled with seats. This list does not include other venues such as sports stadia, dramatic theatres or convention centres that ma ...

opera house An opera house is a theatre building used for performances of opera. It usually includes a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and building sets. While some venues are constructed specifically fo ...

s or

theatres Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...

, although the actual use of single-purpose spaces for other than their intended use is widespread. This sort of space has a long history extending to the Roman

Colosseum The Colosseum ( ; it, Colosseo ) is an oval amphitheatre in the centre of the city of Rome, Italy, just east of the Roman Forum. It is the largest ancient amphitheatre ever built, and is still the largest standing amphitheatre in the world ...

and Greek amphitheatres. * A cluster of performance spaces, either separate buildings or under one roof, each space designed for a specific purpose such as

symphonic music An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, ce ...

chamber music Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small nu ...

or theatre, but multi-purpose as a whole. The modern version of this came into being only in the 1960s. :Examples of this type of PAC are the

Kennedy Center The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (formally known as the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, and commonly referred to as the Kennedy Center) is the United States National Cultural Center, located on the Potom ...

in Washington, D.C., the

Sydney Opera House The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in Sydney. Located on the foreshore of Sydney Harbour, it is widely regarded as one of the world's most famous and distinctive buildings and a masterpiece of 20th-century architec ...

, and the

Lincoln Center Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 milli ...

in New York City. Some performing arts center organizations act as sole presenter for events using the venues within the center, but most also frequently rent their performance spaces to other

performing arts presenters Performing arts presenting organizations facilitate exchanges between artists and audiences through creative, educational, and performance opportunities. The work that these artists perform is produced outside of the presenting organization. ...

or self-presenting performing arts groups. Examples of this practice is the Celebrity Series of Boston renting venues in Boston's

Boch Center The Boch Center (formerly Citi Performing Arts Center and Wang Center for the Performing Arts) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit performing arts organization located in Boston, Massachusetts. It manages the historic Wang and Shubert theatres on Tremont S ...

. New performing arts centers emerged in the latter part of the

20th century The 20th (twentieth) century began on January 1, 1901 ( MCMI), and ended on December 31, 2000 ( MM). The 20th century was dominated by significant events that defined the modern era: Spanish flu pandemic, World War I and World War II, nucle ...

as a means of generating new investment and increased economic activity and thus, a means for revitalizing neighborhoods as patrons are drawn to local restaurants and other businesses. PACs became a draw for touring shows and eventually included visual art in their facilities. Today, these centers are valuable civic resources that provide education, access, exchange of creative discourse, opportunities for cultural expression and awareness.

History

The origin of the world's oldest performing art, Noh, dates back to the 6th and 7th centuries when performing arts came to

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

from mainland

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

. Starting in the 6th century BC, the Classical period of performing art began in Greece, ushered in by the tragic poets such as

Sophocles Sophocles (; grc, Σοφοκλῆς, , Sophoklễs; 497/6 – winter 406/5 BC)Sommerstein (2002), p. 41. is one of three ancient Greek tragedians, at least one of whose plays has survived in full. His first plays were written later than, or c ...

. These poets wrote plays which, in some cases, incorporated dance (see

Euripides Euripides (; grc, Εὐριπίδης, Eurīpídēs, ; ) was a tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars ...

). The

Hellenistic period In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...

began the widespread use of comedy. Much of which was performed live in a center-point of the community. In 1576, Britain's first playhouse 'The Theatre' was built in Finsbury Fields, London. It was constructed by

Leicester's Men The Earl of Leicester's Men was a playing company or troupe of actors in English Renaissance theatre, active mainly in the 1570s and 1580s in the reign of Elizabeth I. In many respects, it was the major company in Elizabethan drama of its time, an ...

– an acting company formed in 1559 from members of the Earl of Leicester's household. Performing arts centers have since flourished and are found in communities large and small around the world.

National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts

When the

National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, also known as Weiwuying, (), is located in Fengshan District, Kaohsiung, Taiwan and has been acknowledged as the largest performance arts center under one roof in the world while owning the largest pipe org ...

opened in

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the no ...

in October 2018, it became the world's largest performing arts center under one roof. Sprawled across 35 acres within the verdant Weiwuying Metropolitan Park, the facility gives the city of

Kaohsiung Kaohsiung City ( Mandarin Chinese: ; Wade–Giles: ''Kao¹-hsiung²;'' Pinyin: ''Gāoxióng'') is a special municipality located in southern Taiwan. It ranges from the coastal urban center to the rural Yushan Range with an area of . Ka ...

a dose of culture it yearned for. Designed by Dutch firm Mecanoo, the futuristic building and its undulating roof that could easily be compared to a spaceship immediately impresses upon arrival. Stepping into the plaza is like walking into a steel equivalent of a cave, where the wavy ceiling drops to the floor, carving out pathways for pedestrians, and is dotted with cutouts that afford natural sunlight to seep in.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Performing Arts Center Educational buildings

History

National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts

See also

References