ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the reader to various forms of defining and understanding performance. Throughout different sections, the chapter offers an overview of all things that are studied as performance, divided into specific categories such as performance art, rituals, performance in everyday life, the performative aspects of identity and performance and media. It also provides a broad definition of performance studies as a field of inquiry and introduces the objects of study of the field, including performance as a method for conducting and presenting ethnographic research.
