ABSTRACT
One aspect of socially engaged performance became so central to performance theory and practice in the late 1980s and early 1990s that for many it has since then become almost emblematic for modern performance art, in general. This was performance associated with construction or exploration of personal identity, and such work is the focus of this chapter. The most elaborately developed area of identity performance has involved performance by women, a significant part of the woman's liberation movement of the late twentieth century. A great deal of modern identity performance, especially of gender, is not so much built on a direct opposition to social norms, but rather by developing a unique expression related to exclusionary work, a process usefully characterized as "disidentification" by Jose Munoz. A close connection between the suffering body, performance, and identity construction was offered by Bob Flanagan, who died in 1996 at the age of 43, one of the oldest survivors of cystic fibrosis.
