The scene costume and the avant-garde performance manifestations in the early twentieth century

Abstract

This study brings a brief analytical panorama of the costumes in the performance manifestations of the European avant-garde movements of the early 20th century which emerged under the context of world wars. From the “performance” conceptualizations in Glusberg (2005) and the “scene costume”, in Viana (2015), the purpose was to investigate the contributions of the stage dress to artistic actions of the futurists, dadaists, surrealists and in the conceptions of the Bauhaus School. It can be observed that, in contrast to the nihilism of the war experience, the costumes contributed to express the restlessness of the artists of this period, and are characterized by the boldness and exploration of forms that resized not only the human body but also its potentialities as a scenic element.