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Community Information Database

Subject Description

Performance Art

Organizations that offer the evolving, freeform, nontraditional and frequently cross-disciplinary art form which had its beginnings in the visual arts in the 1950's with body painting, action painting and other similar forms and which has included, over the past forty years, time art; recitations of prepared text which may be accompanied by dance, sculpture, slide projections or other visual images; feminist-oriented consciousness-raising bioconfessions; intellectual stand-up comedy by clever raconteurs; and spectacle performances that are heavily reliant on electronic media elements. Performance art in the 1990's has been broadened to include almost anything done on stage that is not a formal play with a traditional script and characters, and artists in this area typically value the freedom from tradition.

Taxonomy Code: TA-850.600

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