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To Do:

The ubiquitous “to do” list: a score indicating events that should unfold. Whether it be a performance that is scored, choreographed, scripted, or simply a checklist of prosaic chores, To Do is nearly as elemental as To Be.

Whether considered to be theatre, a happening, an action, an oration, Gesamtkunstwerk (the total work of art) or just a humble deed, any species of performance that does not belong to an identifiable tradition might be called Performance Art.

Performance Art is like a colossal “what-not” bin for the illegitimate children of interdisciplinary cross-fertilization. What is not at home in the concert hall, the theatre, or the dance studio can likely find refuge in the orphanage of Performance Art, the institution for art without an institution.

Some artists endeavor to “break new ground.” But of course what was once perused as uncharted territory becomes mapped and familiar, and is no longer defined as exotic, new, cutting-edge, avant-garde, or post-something-or-other.

What, if anything, distinguishes Performance from Performance Art? Performance Art, you know it’s art. Performance, it may or may not be. The rallying cry of “blurring the boundary between life and art” recognizes a distinction between Nature and Artifice. Nature recognizes no such distinction.

Drawings, ink and marker on paper, 8½″ × 11″. © Brian Dewan. Courtesy of the artist.