What is Performance Theory?

2 WHAT IS PERFORMANCE?

What is "to perform"?

In business, sports, and sex, "to perform" is to do something up to a standard - to succeed, to excel. In the arts, "to perform" is to put on a show, a play, a dance, a concert. In everyday life, "to perform" is to show off, to go to extremes, to underline an action for those who are watching. In the twenty-first century, people as never before live by means of performance.

"To perform" can also be understood in relation to:

Being Doing Showing doing Explaining "showing doing."

"Being" is existence itself. "Doing" is the activity of all that exists, from quarks to sentient beings to supergalactic strings. "Showing doing" is performing: pointing to, under- lining, and displaying doing. "Explaining 'showing doing'" is performance studies.

It is very important to distinguish these categories from each other. "Being" may be active or static, linear or circular, expanding or contracting, material or spiritual. Being is a philosophical category pointing to whatever people theorize is the "ultimate reality." "Doing" and "showing doing" are actions. Doing and showing doing are always in flux, always changing - reality as the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus experienced it. Heraclitus aphorized this perpetual flux: "No one can step twice into the same river, nor touch mortal substance twice in the same condition" (fragment 41 ). The fourth term, "explaining' showing doing' ," is a reflexive effort to comprehend the world of perfor- mance and the world as performance. This comprehension is usually the work of critics and scholars. But sometimes, in Brechtian theatre where the actor steps outside the role to comment on what the character is doing, and in critically aware performance art such as Guillermo Gomez-Pena's and Coco Fusco's Two Undiscovered Amerindians Visit the West (1992), a performance is reflexive. I discuss this sort of performance in Chapters 5, 6, and 8.

Heraclitus of Ephesus (c. 535--475 BCE): Greek philosopher credited with the creation of the doctrine of "flux j" the theory of impermanence and change, You can't step into the same river twice because the flowof the river iusuresthat .11ew water continually replaces the old.

G6mez-Peiia(1955- ): Mexican-born bi-national performance artist and author, . leader of La Pocha N ostra. His works indudehothwritingsWarriorfor Gringosuoika.(1993), The New World Border (1996), Danaeroqs Border Crossers(2000), and Ethno:- Techno Writinas on Performance. ACtivism, and Pedd809J (200S •. with Elaine Pena) - and performances; &rderBrujo (1990),EINc!ftazeca (1994), Border StaSis (1998), Brownout:·. Border Pulp Stories (;WO 1 ), and Mexterminator vsthe GlobalPredator (2005).

Coco Fusco (1960-): .Cuban.;.born interdisciplinary artist based in New York City .. · Collabotated with Guillermo Gomez-Peiia on the performance . Two Undiscovered Alnerindians Visit the West (1992). Otherperformances include: Doloresfiom lOb to 22h (2002, with Ricardo Dominguez) and The Incredible Disappearina Woman. (2003, with Ric<irdo Dominguez). Fusco is the author of English is Broken Here PeiformanceArt1the Americas (2000), The Bodies That Were Not Oilrs (2001), and Only Skin Deep (2003, with Brian Wallis).

reflexive: referring back to oneselfor itself.

Performances Performances mark identities, bend time, reshape and adorn the body, and tell stories. Performances - of art, rituals, or ordinary life - are "restored behaviors," "twice-behaved behaviors," performed actions that people train for and rehearse (see GofTman box). That making art involves training and rehearsing is clear. But everyday life also involves years of training and practice, of learning appro- priate culturally speCific bits of behavior, of adjusting and

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