Use the Five Senses in Performance Art

Video Transcript

"In this clip "All About Performance Art," I'm going to talk about the five senses. In creating your performance art piece, keep in mind the five senses, and how you can best use them to communicate your concept. What are the five senses? Sight--visualness. Performance art comes from the visual tradition, so make your piece visual, whether it's in your costume, or in the sets, or painting, or you're spontaneously painting as you're talking and creating and moving around the stage, make it visual. Performance art is always very visual. What else? There's touch. Is there a way that you can involve your audience interactively and have them touch something, have something textural at their seats, or they have to walk into a room and walk through sheer softness, or maybe kind of spiky nails that they have to avoid, or sandpaper, that they have to sit on sandpaper? How can you involve touch and really let them feel? What else? Smell. How can you fill the room with a scent that further communicates your concept? What else? Sound. Not just music, but sound. Loud noise or quiet creeping sounds. Really use sound to further communicate your concept. What else? Mmm, pepper. Taste. Is there a way that you can use taste? Are you eating on stage? Are you making your audience taste things? Do you go around and have them taste things? Use the senses. It will make your performance art piece have much more impact."