Artists using movements, objects and their voices to convey their expressions, emotions and feelings is what we call performing arts. Differing significantly from visual arts whereby artists use paints or other materials to create physical and normally still objects. Performing arts is usually performed in front of a live audience and covers a range of disciplines including; music, theatre, musical theatre, opera, magic and illusions, mime, circus arts, speech and performance art.

The history of performing arts is coupled with the history of humans and is found in every human culture. Music and dancing originating from pre-historic times and things we consider to be circus skills dating to Ancient Egyptian times. Many people have turned to performing arts as their profession and perform on a vast variety of stages. From opera houses and theatres to stages at festivals and circuses. The live performances are a form of entertainment and social gathering yet with the development of video and audio recording performing arts can be consumed in the private setting also.

Performance art is a specialized form of fine art that involves the use of visual art within the context of a performance, usually these performances include some form of plastic art. Dance has often been referred to as plastic art during the modern era.

Theatre is a branch of performing arts where the actors use a mixture of gesture, speech, sound, music, dance and spectacle, in fact any on or more of these elements is considered performing arts. Theatre as well as taking the form of the standard dialogue driven performances can also include opera, ballet, improvisation, pantomime, contemporary, musicals and stand-up comedy to name a few.

Dance within performing arts refers to human movement usually coupled with music and moving to the rhythm of said music. Definitions of what dance really are very much dependant on cultural, social, moral and aesthetic parameters and include a wide variety of movement from river dancing to ballet.

Music is the creation of sound via a mixture of pitch, rhythm and order of the sounds, using a variety of instruments and evolving with time we divide it into genres such as jazz, rock, hip hop and electronic dance music etc.