In this book, Erika Fischer-Lichte traces the emergence of performance as ''an art event'' in its own right. In setting performance art on an equal footing with the traditional art object, she heralds a new aesthetics.
The peculiar mode of experience that a performance provokes - blurring distinctions between artist and audience, body and mind, art and life - is here framed as the breeding ground for a new way of understanding performing arts, and through them even wider social and cultural processes.
With an introduction by Marvin Carlson, this translation of the original -thetik des Performativen addresses key issues in performance art, experimental theatre and cultural performances to lay the ground for a new appreciation of the artistic event.
