In their assessment of the schema.org ontology, the Canadian Association for the Performing Arts (CAPACOA) and its partners have encountered a lack of expressiveness of schema.org when it comes to describing performing arts events (live events) and related entities. We therefore propose the definition of two new classes to complement the schema.org ontology - the first one of them being a new sub-class of CreativeWork: PerformanceWork.

Rationale

There is currently no possibility to specifically describe Performance Works as such. Simply describing them as schema:CreativeWork may lead to confusion as the current ontology tends to overlook or ignore the existence of Performance Works. Furthermore, the description of Performance Works requires a particular set of properties characteristic of performing arts productions.

Definition of PerformanceWork

The new class schema:PerformanceWork is defined as a subclass of schema:CreativeWork and is used to refer to any element (or combination thereof) of the WEMI stack of a Performance Work (in analogy to frbr:Work, frbr:Expression, frbr:Manifestation, frbr:Item).

The semantic scope of schema:PerformanceWork is specified to englobe all the branches of the performing arts (music, theatre, dance, acrobatics, spoken word), including performance art and performative sports.

The textbox below contains the proposed definition and usage note of schema:PerformanceWork.

Thing > CreativeWork > PerformanceWork

Work of the performing arts, consisting of live performances in front of an audience. 

Note: To be used in combination with PerformingArtsEvent to describe productions / shows of the performing arts
(music, theatre, dance, acrobatics, spoken word), including performance art and performative sports (e.g. choreographed 
forms of martial arts, figure skating, competitive ballroom dancing).

Additional Properties of PerformanceWork

As a subclass of schema:CreativeWork, schema:PerformanceWork inherits the properties of schema:CreativeWork. For the class PerformanceWork, the following additional properties are proposed:

• author (see: https://schema.org/author)
• composer (see: https://schema.org/composer)
• musicBy (see: https://schema.org/musicBy)
• choreographer - new property, defined as "The person or organization who created a choreography, or who is the choreographer of a work performed at some event."

Further Information

See also the related proposal for the creation of a new sub-class of Event: PerformingArtsEvent.

The rationale and conceptual underpinning for the proposal of the two new classes have been described in more detail in the following document: Modeling Performing Arts Events (Version 1.0). If you would like to comment directly on that document, please do so in the related Google Doc.