by Naomi K

Created on: April 30, 2008

Chances are if you mention the term "stage combat" to the average entertainment consumer, you'll be met with either a blank stare or a look of uncertainty.

However, if it wasn't for the theatrical art of stage combat, the world of movies and television would be a very different one indeed.

The history of stage combat can be traced back as far as tribal cultures demonstrating the prowess of warriors in rituals and dances and the origins of theater back to the Greeks, Romans (along with combat for entertainment thanks to the gladiatorial events), and even further back still.

Later playwrights like Shakespeare regularly included fight scenes in their work, and technique of mock combat for the benefit of audiences is still part of the standard training repertoire in collegiate drama courses all over the world.

With the advent of modern television (yes, pro-wrestling included) and the action film genre, the skill of being able to look like you're beating your fellow actors into the next decade without acting causing them grievous bodily injury is a more marketable ability for thespians than ever.

Let's face it, though. There's a limited number of high dollar Hollywood stars who can or will put themselves at potentially serious physical risk by doing all the fighting themselves.(Gotta protect that multi-million dollar face, after all.) Thanks to stunt doubles and the golden age of special effects technology, they no longer have to do as much of the dirty work themselves and the audience is rarely the wiser after editing magic has done its job.

For those who prefer their violent entertainment a little more in your face and non-digital, there are still a few bastions of stage combat that exist for their visceral thrills. One of the most enduring is an American institution: the renaissance fair.

Although the renaissance fair can conjure up memories for most people of oversized turkey legs, men in tights, and dubious Old English accents and dialect, no fair is truly complete without some type of choreographed stage combat for their beer wielding audiences. Often it's in the form of a "human chessmatch" in which actors act as chess pieces on a giant board to fight against each other or some other sort of tournament set-up.

Just as every performance art scene has its rogue factors who insist on rocking the boat of tradition though, even the fairs have spawned their fair share. Standards are set and then left in the dust as fighters want to push their performances and themselves

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