ABSTRACT
The performance of identity, often with the use of autobiographical material, became one of the most common forms of performance art from the early 1970s onward. However, its frequent concern with providing a voice to previously silenced individuals and groups often involved such work in social and cultural issues as well. This chapter considers performance and theory more oriented toward general cultural practices and tensions. Like most distinctions one might make in speaking of performance, it is very porous, since individual identity is of course developed within and operates within specific cultural contexts. Indeed, one of the questions taken up in this chapter (and an important part of contemporary performance theory) is whether it is even proper to speak of individual identity as distinct from cultural givens. The growing interest in intercultural performance between North and South America is only part of a growing attention to performative border crossings around the world.
