Academic and Performing Arts

Abstract

The essay, “The Performing Arts and Their Scholarly Companion”, puts special emphasis on the concept of “experience”. The performing arts transform human experience creatively into works of art, while scholarly activities should be based on the primary experience of original artistic works that, through an analytical and synthetical process, lay a solid foundation for a systematic body of knowledge, constituting such disciplines as Theatre Studies and Dramaturgy. The aforementioned principle is substantiated by a study of concrete examples drawn from both Thai and foreign sources which, in turn, demonstrate how academic work can be both productive and counter-productive. Criticism has an important function to fulfil in supporting scholarly activities that will propel the performing arts to the status of an intellectual force for society. In the present world in which multifarious media are incarcerating human life, the performing arts can perform a special role in preserving the warmth of real human contact.