Performing arts is a wide-ranging category. The report has included measures on theatre, music, comedy and dance. These art forms are in some respects the essence of urban culture, as they only flourish where people with artistic talent and technical skills can be brought together with audiences large enough to support their activities. As a result, performance traditions have developed in certain cities that have endured for centuries. London, for example, has been a great centre for theatre since the late sixteenth century, when Shakespeare, Marlowe, Kyd and others began writing their plays and establishing their companies. The sheer scale and diversity of world cities provides a wide range of potential audiences for a huge variety of ‘live’ performance. This audience is big enough to support large venues such as theatres or opera houses. However, world cities also have many informal, indoor and outdoor performance spaces, often in bars, pubs, or restaurants, and many forgotten or hidden spaces, which can be used by, for instance, site-specific theatre productions. As such, they provide a mix of venues that allows these art forms to flourish in ways that are less possible in smaller towns or cities. The data confirms that theatre remains vibrant in major cities. New York has 420 theatres, while Paris has 353 and Tokyo has 230. London follows these three, with 214. The number of theatrical performances is considerable. The total in New York is estimated at 43,000, with 32,000 in London and more than 20,000 each in Paris and Tokyo. However, theatre attendance is highest in New York at over 28 million, although London reports 14 million a year just for theatres that are members of SOLT (Society of London Theatres), which are mostly the West End commercial theatres. Many of the cities also have significant numbers of live music venues. Some of this activity takes place in major concert halls, which often have a focus on classical or orchestral music. Tokyo and New York each have fifteen of these. They are, however, just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the number of venues. Paris, Tokyo and London each have close to, or more than, 350 live music venues, with New York and Berlin having more than 200. Estimating the number of music performances is not straightforward, but the figures suggest Paris has more than 30,000 in a year, ahead of New York, Tokyo and London. Comedy as a distinct genre with its own venues is only a couple of decades old, with wide variations across the cities. However, there are thousands of performances in New York, London, Paris and Tokyo. In the cities of the emerging economies, by contrast, such performances are counted in the hundreds. Dance performances are more evenly spread. New York has significantly more than any of the other cities (6,300) but behind it Paris, London, Shanghai, Tokyo and Singapore have at least 1,500 a year. In many cases this level of activity is built on high levels of participation in dance by non-professionals. -World Cities Culture Report-
Posted on: Wed, 26 Jun 2013 08:05:06 +0000
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