• Journal of Korean Theatre Studies Association
• /
• no.52
• /
• pp.271-317
• /
• 2014

This essay studied the acting theories of Diderot, Delsarte, Meyerhold, and Artaud to know the historical formation of 'sign acting' and its theoretical and aesthetic appropriateness. The sign acting so far discussed shows the repetitive patterns of idea as follows. The sign acting (1) emphasizes the physical expression such as gesture and movement, (2) assumes that the physical expression functions as a sign evoking special emotion and thought, (3) thus recommends the imitation of the outer sign, (4) uses a tableau for the effective reception of outer sign, (5) aims for the spectator oriented aesthetics as it stresses the result of outer sign rather than the creative process of a role, (6) assumes that the emotional reaction or the intellectual understanding springs from the physical experience, (7) thus emphasizes the physical language rather than speech, (8) can attain the appropriateness of physical language by the recent theories of cognitive science. Besides having such commonness, the sign acting also reveals the individual differences. For instance, the intended sign for Diderot and Delsarte was the sign of emotion, for Meyerhold the stylized sign of circus and acrobatics, and for Artaud the spiritual sign. If Diderot and Meyerhold demands the cool consciousness for the correct sign acting, Artaud's sign acting tends to pursue the state of trance. And if Diderot, Delsarte, and Meyerhold think the sign acting on the level of sensory appeal, Artaud insists that the sign acting should dismantle the spectator's sense. As such the discussion of sign acting shows both recurrent ideas and new visions, forming an unity out of diversity. Perhaps the sign acting is a matter of practice before we consider it as a theory. It is not only supposed to have been existed practically since ancient theatre, but also used by actors consciously and unconsciously in expressing certain emotion and thought. We need to study the sign acting more academically, considering its long history and aesthetic potentials. In fact the sign acting has been an essential element of acting, in spite of bad reputation judging it as a banal and worn-out style. It is true that the sign acting, in the worst case, could produce a stereotypical expression. It was this aspect of sign acting that caused a fierce negative reaction of the realists who sought the natural expression based upon psychological truth. Of course the sign acting has a serious problem when it stays banal and artificial. But we need to see this issue from a different perspective. What is the natural expression of emotion? How is it free from the learned way of expression? In some respect, we use, in reality, a learned expression of emotion that could be accepted socially. For instance, when we attend a funeral, we use the outer sign of mourning gestures learned socially. If a semiotic expression pervades various aspects of our life, the acting, being the representation of life, seems not to be free from codified expression. The sign acting could be used consciously and unconsciously in all kinds of acting.

• Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
• /
• v.14 no.8
• /
• pp.49-62
• /
• 2020

Musicals are plays in which songs and dances are closely aligned with the plot development of the play, and songs and dances develop specific situations and a series of events. In particular, songs perform a fuction of causing the significant changes and emotional ventilation and amplification in the play by specifically capturing the goals and actions the characters are aiming for. This paper focuses on the song that takes on the function of the plot deployment, defines songs that embody actions and stories on stage' as 'action songs' and highlights their role and importance. Action Song is not a clearly defined or prescribed term in Musical. However, 'Action Song' is a song about how a character's desire or motivation for action, given as a 'character song' inserted at the beginning of an integrated musical play, provides a conflict that is a central event of action. In other words, 'action song' means a song that organically combines music and narrative by conveying the action on the stage as a song with lyrics. In addition, it is a song that moves the plot forward and contains a series of events or actions that are the material of the plot. This paper is intended to summarize the concept of'Action song which is not well known to us, and to lay the foundation of the stud, learned the concept, function and efficiency by the analyses of script and music of the musical . As a result, action songs accumulate and amplify tension caused by conflicts and induce the audience to immerse in their emotions. At the same time, the action song multiplies fun and interest of the play while the audience's expectation increased for the next scene after the action song and the progression of the play with single action makes the contents of the drama to be understood clearly.

• Journal of Science of Art and Design
• /
• v.10
• /
• pp.183-218
• /
• 2006

Colors change in time corresponding with the value system and aesthetic consciousness of the time. The roles that colors play in painting can be divided into the formative role based on the contrast and harmony of color planes and the aesthetic role expressed by colors to represent the objects. The aesthetic consciousness of the orient starts with the Civility(禮) and Pleasure(樂), which is closely related with restrained or tempered human feelings. In the art world of the orient including poem, painting, and music, what are seen and felt from the objects are not represented in all. Added by the sentiment laid background, the beauty of the orient emphasizes the beauty of restraint and temperance, which has long been the essential aesthetic emotion of the orient. From the very inception of oriental painting, colors had become a symbolic system in which the five colors associated with the philosophy of Yin and Yang and Five Forces were symbolically connected with the four sacred animals of Red Peacock, Black Turtle, Blue Dragon, and White Tiger. In this color system the use of colors was not free from ideological matters, and was further constrained by the limited color production and distribution. Therefore, development in color expression seemed to have been very much limited because of the unavailability and unreadiness of various colors. Studies into the flow in oriental painting show that color expression in oriental painting have changed from symbolic color expression to poetic expression, and then to emotional color expression as the mode of painting changes in time. As oriental painting transformed from the art of religious or ceremonial purpose to one of appreciation, the mast visible change in color expression is the one of realism(simulation). Rooted on the naturalistic color expression of the orient where the fundamental properties of objects were considered mast critical, this realistic color expression depicts the genuine color properties that the objects posses, with many examples in the Flower & Bird Painting prior to the North Sung dynasty. This realistic expression of colors changed as poetic sentiments were fused with painting in later years of the North Sung dynasty, in which a conversion to light ink and light coloring in the use of ink and colors was witnessed, and subjective emotion was intervened and represented. This mode of color expression had established as free and creative coloring with vivid expression of individuality. The fusion of coloring and lyricism was borrowed from the trend in painting after the North Sung dynasty which was mentioned earlier, and from the trend in which painting was fused with poetic sentiments to express the emotion of artists, accompanied with such features as light coloring and compositional change. Here, the lyricism refers to the artist's subjective perspective of the world and expression of it in refined words with certain rhythm, the essence of which is the integration of the artist's ego and the world. The poetic ego projects the emotion and sentiment toward the external objects or assimilates them in order to express the emotion and sentiment of one's own ego in depth and most efficiently. This is closely related with the rationale behind the long-standing tradition of continuous representation of same objects in oriental painting from ancient times to contemporary days. According to the thoughts of the orient, nature was not just an object of expression, but recognized as a personified body, to which the artist projects his or her emotions. The result is the rebirth of meaning in painting, completely different from what the same objects previously represented. This process helps achieve the integration and unity between the objects and the ego. Therefore, this paper discussed the lyrical expression of colors in the works of the author, drawing upon the poetic expression method reflected in the traditional Flower and Bird Painting, one of the painting modes mainly depending on color expression. Based on the related discussion and analysis, it was possible to identify the deep thoughts and the distinctive expression methods of the orient and to address the significance to prioritize the issue of transmission and development of these precious traditions, which will constitute the main identity of the author's future work.