Crossing Genres: Movement and Music

Abstract

Manifestations of popular, contemporaneous culture appeared regularly on the British stage throughout the first half of the twentieth century. As we have seen, cinema, radio, print journalism and variety theatre forms impacted poetic and political groups alike, once again contradicting any artificial divisions. But this was, I suggest,a reflection of a larger growing preoccupation with cross-generic forms more generally; surely if the barrier between the concepts of so-called ‘high’ and ‘low’ art could be eroded and traversed, then the boundaries between other genres could display a similar elementof flux. Although naturalistic theatre contained moments of music and dance (examples include Nora’s rehearsed dance for the costume party in A Doll’s House or the dance at the start of act three in Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard), these were intrinsically part of the linear narrative rather than acting as independent artistic modes.This was also true of melodrama where music was used to create atmosphere, captivating the audience rather than enabling them to critically assess the action.