The Arts Glossary

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arts disciplines: Arts disciplines encompass distinct bodies of knowledge each with its own conventions, skills, expressive forms and language involving creation and performance, aesthetics, traditions, contexts and analysis. Schools use the six disciplines of Art, Dance, Drama, Media, Music and from Level 5, Visual Communication as the starting points for delivery of student learning programs in the Arts.

arts elements, principles and/or conventions:

arts elements: The visual, tactile, sonic and spatial qualities and sensory components used to create and talk about two-dimensional, three-dimensional and time-based arts works. Arts elements traditionally associated with particular arts disciplines and forms include:

Art: line, shape, space, texture, colour, form, tone, movement, surface, composition, sound

Dance: space, time, energy, the body. Dance also uses production elements including music, sound, projected image, costume, make-up, properties, lighting and set-design

Drama: voice, movement, gesture, focus, language, sound, silence, tension, conflict, climax, contrast, mood, symbol. Drama also uses stagecraft elements including acting, direction, dramaturgy, stage management, sound effects and/or accompaniment, properties, lighting, costume, make-up and set design.

Media: sound, colour, movement, light, images, pattern

Music: pitch (melody and harmony), duration (rhythm, time and metre), dynamics and volume, tempo, tone colour, texture/timbre, instrumentation, tonality, articulation

Visual communication: point, line, shape, tone, colour, texture, colour, letterform, sound.

Contemporary arts works often combine elements from a range of traditional arts disciplines and forms.

arts principles and/or conventions: Ways arts elements are used, arranged, manipulated and/or organised to create arts works. Arts principles are sometimes referred to as design principles and may also be referred to as compositional or structural devices or conventions; for example, theatrical conventions.

Arts principles and/or conventions include: unity, balance, harmony, distortion, abstraction, juxtaposition, contrast, space, hierarchy, level, scale, symmetry/asymmetry, proportion, cropping, repetition, relationships, pattern, sequence, emphasis, movement, rhythm, augmentation, diminution, variation, tension and release.

arts forms: Arts works can be categorised as forms representative of particular formal and informal fields, genres, products and/or structures. This categorisation is generally determined by characteristics of the work such as the organisation of and relationships between arts elements in the work and/or specific technical, aesthetic and/or expressive qualities evident in the work. Some arts forms are traditionally associated with particular arts disciplines although these distinctions are less influential in the categorisation of contemporary arts works which are frequently described as being for example, ‘multi-disciplinary’ and/or in a ‘hybrid form’.

Arts forms associated with specific disciplines include:

Art: two-dimensional, three-dimensional, digital, collage, drawing, painting, photography, print-making, sculpture, textile/fibre (for example, tapestry, weaving, costume), installation, performance art, mask-making, mixed-media, ceramics, conceptual
Dance: improvisation, learnt movement material, self- or group-devised, set movement material, solo, duet/partner dance, ensemble/group. Dance includes many genres which in turn each encompass a range of styles: for example, the genre of Classical Ballet includes styles such as Romanticism and Neo-Classicism; Contemporary Dance includes styles such as Graham, Cunningham, Limon and Horton; folk and ethnic genres include traditional dance forms of countries, cultures and indigenous societies, Musical Theatre and Commercial dance genres include jazz dance, funk, hip hop and tap
Drama: story-telling, mime, puppetry, improvisation, spontaneous dramatic play, role-play, movement, process drama, enactment, devised drama, scripted drama, monologue, ensemble work, physical theatre, dance drama, theatrical forms such as poor theatre, or commedia dell’arte
Media: television programs, film, video, photography, interactive CD-ROMs/DVDs, computer/electronic games, radio, print layout (for example, magazine, newspaper), sequence, collage, role-play, animation, claymation
Music: instrumental, vocal, soundscape, composition, improvisation. Other music forms are based on compositional structures; for example, symphony, raga, blues, and song-form
Visual communication: map, graph, symbol, diagram, chart, illustration, instrumental drawing, architectural drawing, three-dimensional model/form, poster, flyer/brochure, package, logo/corporate identity, two-dimensional layout, multimedia.

arts language: Arts language is used throughout the Arts domain as an umbrella term for ‘arts language, arts terminology and arts expressions’. Each of these facilitates the range of learning required in the Arts domain. Students can learn to speak/write about their works, about other people’s works, they can learn to use symbol systems as appropriate and they can develop skills in speaking about arts in terms of content and use of technique, process, elements, principles and/or conventions, media, materials, equipment and technologies. Arts language includes:

Arts language – aesthetic, oral, visual, symbolic including notation, gestural, physical, kinaesthetic and/or written language used in an agreed way to portray, communicate, describe, discuss, analyse, evaluate, and/or comment on arts works, events, ideas and/or concepts; for example, the symbol system that is Western music notation, or the symbols used by Cecchetti to document choreography and techniques.
Arts terminology – formal learned terms used in particular ways to define, explain, and show recognition of and/or understandings specific to each arts discipline. Arts specific terms are associated with specific arts disciplines; for example, in Art, formal elements such as line, shape and/or texture. Many of these terms are used in more than one arts discipline and the meaning across disciplines can have strong connections (for example, sequence in Music and Media). More generally, however, the meaning is different between disciplines; for example, tone in Drama and Visual Arts.
Arts expressions – words and phrases often associated with particular aesthetic perspectives and/or the vernacular of cultural artistic communications and aesthetic interpretations that are subject to change over time. For example, arts expressions such as ‘primitive understanding’ or ‘soulless expression’ can be used in arts works and commentaries/analyses etc to communicate ideas, meanings, messages, observations, perceptions and/or concepts. Often these expressions combine formal terms and more colloquial language; for example, ‘mise en scene’ or ‘structured improvisation’. Arts expressions are also used to communicate affective understandings; for example, a description of a movement phrase from a dance work such as ‘crumpled up like a dried leaf’. Arts expressions vary according to the perceptions and understandings of the user and the audience and are dependent on cultural and experiential contexts.

media, materials, equipment and technologies: Two-dimensional, three-dimensional, time-based, sonic and physical objects and/or resources found in the natural and human environments and used to make and/or present arts works.

Media, materials, equipment and technologies often associated with traditional arts disciplines include:

Art and Visual communication: two-dimensional and three-dimensional, hard, soft, wet, dry, papers, clays, videotape, pens, pencils, wire, crayons, washes, woods, metals, information and communications technology hardware and software, paints, dyes, cameras, natural (for example, shells, leaves, grasses, rice, sand, pasta), threads, plastics, film, canvas, fabric, moulds, glues, glass, light, cards, water, markers, chalks, plasticine, papier maché, straws, kiln, knives, sponge, ceramicists’ tools (for example, clay-cutter, tools for creating decorative effects), silk-screen, balloons
Dance: the body, whole or part body movements, locomotor and non-locomotor gestures and actions, dance studio/rehearsal room, music, technologies to support dance-making processes and presentation such as sound, lighting, make-up, properties, costume and information and communications technologies
Drama: the body, voice, acting space, stimulus materials (for example, books, music, film/video, personal experience, pictures, myths, environments), technologies to support drama processes, production and presentation such as sound, lighting, properties, make-up, costume and information and communications technologies
Media: images, sounds, objects, digital, recycled materials, technologies for making and recording and/or manipulating images and sounds (for example, film, camera, editing software), technologies for presenting media products
Music: voice, instruments (acoustic, electronic, digital), objects (for example, washboard, gourd), body percussion, recorded sounds, technologies for recording, sequencing and manipulating sounds, technologies for presenting performances; for example, microphones, speakers.

multimodal: Multimodal forms combine, for example, visual images and sound in an installation work, or music, dramatic, kinaesthetic and visual elements in an opera, musical or shadow puppet play.

sensory perception: Students’ sense of the aesthetic is expressed through a heightened and increasingly focused awareness of the ways arts works and even environments and objects look, feel and sound, and the impact it has on them and other people. For example, in the early years of schooling, students might comment on the way that lines in a drawing represent the path flight of a bird they have seen flying or how the sounds they are making on a drum are like the sound of rain on a pavement.

skills, techniques and processes: Ways and methods of using and manipulating elements, principles, media, materials, equipment and technologies. Skills, techniques and processes can be used to realise ideas, achieve specific effects, investigate creative outcomes for expressive, aesthetic and/or technical tasks and/or to explore (practically, by observation and/or through discussion) aesthetic and communicative potential of media and materials. Skills and techniques can be practised in isolation but are generally used as part of an arts-making process.

Artists also use a range of processes to document (in verbal, written, physical and/or visual forms) working and/or thinking practices, and/or comment on/critique arts works.