Performance Studies Cheat Sheet

The core ideas of Performance Studies distilled into a single, scannable reference — perfect for review or quick lookup.

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Quick Reference

Performativity

The capacity of language and bodily action to not merely describe but actually constitute social reality. Derived from J.L. Austin's speech act theory and developed by Judith Butler, performativity holds that repeated performative acts produce the very identities and social categories they appear to express.

Restored Behavior

Richard Schechner's concept that all performance consists of 'twice-behaved behavior' or 'strips of behavior' that can be rearranged, reconstructed, and repeated. No performance is entirely original; all performances draw on previously existing actions, scripts, and repertoires.

Social Drama

Victor Turner's model describing how social conflicts unfold through four phases: breach (violation of a norm), crisis (escalation), redressive action (formal or informal mechanisms to resolve the conflict), and reintegration or schism. Turner saw these dramas as performative processes fundamental to social life.

Liminality

A concept from Victor Turner describing the threshold state experienced during rituals and performances where participants are 'betwixt and between' established social positions. In liminal states, ordinary social structures are suspended, allowing transformation, communitas, and the reimagining of social roles.

Dramaturgy (Goffman)

Erving Goffman's sociological framework analyzing everyday social interaction as theatrical performance. Individuals are 'actors' who manage impressions through front-stage behavior (public presentation) and back-stage behavior (private actions), using props, costumes, and scripts to present desired identities.

The Archive and the Repertoire

Diana Taylor's distinction between two systems of knowledge transmission: the archive (documents, texts, buildings, and other supposedly enduring materials) and the repertoire (embodied practices such as spoken language, dance, ritual, and gesture that require presence to transmit).

Communitas

Victor Turner's term for the intense feeling of social bonding and equality that arises among participants in liminal ritual experiences. Communitas dissolves ordinary social hierarchies and creates a sense of shared humanity and collective belonging.

Intercultural Performance

Performance practices that draw on, combine, or negotiate between two or more distinct cultural traditions. This concept raises critical questions about cultural exchange, appropriation, authenticity, and power dynamics in globalized performance contexts.

Efficacy vs. Entertainment

Schechner's continuum describing the dual functions of performance. At one end, performances aim for efficacy (transformation, healing, teaching, persuasion); at the other, they aim for entertainment (pleasure, fun, display). Most performances exist somewhere along this continuum rather than at either extreme.

Embodied Knowledge

Knowledge that resides in the body and is transmitted through physical practice, gesture, and performance rather than through texts or verbal instruction. Performance studies insists that embodied knowledge is a valid and vital epistemological category alongside textual and discursive knowledge.

Key Terms at a Glance

Performance:In performance studies, a broadly defined category encompassing any activity framed, presented, highlighted, or displayed for an audience or participants, including theater, ritual, play, sports, and everyday social behavior.

Performativity:The capacity of speech and bodily action to constitute social reality rather than merely represent it. Extended by Judith Butler to theorize gender as a repeated performance.

Restored Behavior:Richard Schechner's concept that all performances consist of recombined strips of previously performed behavior, making all performance fundamentally repetitive and citational.

Social Drama:Victor Turner's four-phase model (breach, crisis, redressive action, reintegration/schism) describing how social conflicts unfold as performative processes.

Liminality:The threshold or in-between state experienced during rituals and transitional periods, where normal social structures are temporarily suspended.

Communitas:The spontaneous, egalitarian sense of community and shared humanity that arises among people in liminal states, dissolving ordinary social hierarchies.

Dramaturgy:Erving Goffman's sociological framework that analyzes everyday social interaction using theatrical metaphors such as actors, roles, front-stage, back-stage, and impression management.

Impression Management:The process by which individuals attempt to control the perceptions others form of them, a central concept in Goffman's dramaturgical analysis.

The Archive:In Diana Taylor's framework, the system of knowledge stored in supposedly enduring documents, texts, buildings, and material objects.

The Repertoire:Diana Taylor's term for embodied practices (dance, ritual, oral tradition, gesture) that transmit knowledge and memory through bodily participation and presence.

Efficacy:The transformative, ritual, or healing function of performance, as opposed to its entertainment function. One pole of Schechner's efficacy-entertainment continuum.

Embodied Knowledge:Knowledge held in the body and transmitted through physical practice and performance rather than through written texts or verbal instruction.

Ritual:Formalized, symbolic, often repeated actions that mark transitions, maintain social order, or enact spiritual beliefs. A central category in performance studies.

Rites of Passage:Arnold van Gennep's model of transitional rituals consisting of three phases: separation, transition (liminality), and incorporation.

Catharsis:The emotional purging or release experienced by audiences through witnessing dramatic performance, especially tragedy. Derived from Aristotle's Poetics.

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