ABSTRACT
Any discussion of a performance’s or an artwork’s relation to the world outside itself will be shadowed by the long and vexed history of mimesis. Probably derived from mimos, meaning both actor and actor’s performance, mimesis is almost impossible to pin down. Its meanings run the gamut from the deprecatory-mimesis is mere copying, imitation, mimicry, fakery, reproduction-to the profoundly signicantmimesis is a faculty, a magical system of resemblance and correspondence, a fundamental component of human behavior.
