Mapping Multimodal Performance Studies: An Introduction

Traditional performing arts, such as theatre, dance, and opera, are multimodal meaning-making events, as they incorporate a wide range of semiotic resources, such as language, music, and body movements, for example, which are orchestrated to produce meanings in specific contexts and cultures. Other less easily classified performance-related events, including recorded performances (i.e. films or TV shows), art installations, and discursive practices in naturally-occurring or mediatized contexts can similarly be analyzed via multimodal approaches to communication, as they likewise include intricate semiotic patterns resulting from the use of multiple semiotic resources. Interestingly, and quite strikingly, no systematic attempt has been made so far to bring together these multiple but similar strands of multimodal analysis into the complex arena of performing arts, with few exceptions (e.g., in our ranks, Sindoni, Wildfeuer, O’Halloran 2016). This volume, in contrast, inaugurates the new strand of multimodal performance studies – aimed at grappling with theoretical and analytical issues of this area, as demonstrated by the chapters in this volume.