Preface; Part I. Definitions of Performance: 1. Sociology and the rituals of interaction; 2. Theatre, ceremony and everyday life; 3. Ethnography, folklore and communicative events; 4. Cultural performance, social drama and liminality; 5. Performance as a new sort of knowledge; Part II. The Emergence of Performance as Sensuous Practice: 6. Situationism, games and subversion; 7. Hippies and expressive play; 8. Performance as a new pedagogy; 9. Architecture and the performed city; 10. New forms of activism; 11. Happenings and everyday performance; 12. Body art and feminism; 13. The arrival of performance art and live art; 14. Dance party politics; Part III. Theorising Performance: 15. Performance, postmodernism and critical theory; 16. What performance studies is: version 1: New York and Northwestern; 17. What performance studies is: version 2: oral interpretation; 18. How performance studies emerged; 19. Gender performativity; 20. Performance and performativity; 21. The relations between performance, theatre and text; 22. The magic of performance; Afterword.