This is the key introductory text to all types of performance with extracts from fifty practitioners, critics and theorists from the fields of dance, drama, music, theatre and live art.

The Twentieth Century Performance Reader is the key introductory text to all types of performance. Extracts from fifty practitioners, critics and theorists from the fields of dance, drama, music, theatre and live art make up an essential sourcebook for students, researchers and practitioners. A bestseller since its publication in 1996, this second edition has been fully updated and includes: New writings by practitioners and theorists Notes about each writer A completely new introduction. Each extract is fully supplemented by a contextual summary, a biography of the writer, and suggestions for further reading. Organised alphabetically, this reader makes it possible to compare major writings on all types of performance in one volume. The ways in which different performance practitioners' ideas inter-relate are pointed out in a series of detailed cross-references for readers. In so doing it becomes clear that one of the key features of twenty first century performance is its boundlessness and its capacity to cross borders. All who enjoy or work with live innovative performance will find this book invaluable.

Trisha Brown, Trisha Brown - an interview
Judith Butler, performative acts and gender constitution
John Cage, four statements on the dance
Marvin Carlson, what is performance?

Jacques Copeau, current trends/the director as partly actor
Edward Gordon Craig, the actor and the uber-marionette
Merce Cuningham, you have to love dancing to stick to it
Isadora Duncan, the dancer of the future
Tim Etchells, on performance writing
Richard Foreman, how to write a play
Susan Leigh Fister, choreographing history
Roselee Goldberg, performance art from futurism to the present
Jerzy Grotowski, statement of principle
Tatsumi Hijikata, man, once dead, crawl back!
Doris Humphrey, the art of making dances
Alfred Jarry, of the futility of the "theatrical" in theatre
Bill T. Jones, a conversation
Tadeusz Kantor, the theatre of death - a manifesto
Allan Kaprow, assemblages, environments and
happenings
Elizabeth LeCompte, interview
Robert Lepage, Robert Lepage in discussion
F.T. Marinetti, the founding and
manifesto of futurism
John Martin, characteristics of the modern dance
Vsevolod Meyerhold, first attempts at a stylized theatre
Heiner Muller, answers by Heiner Muller
Erwin Piscator, epic satire
Yvonne Rainer
Hans Richter, how did Dada begin?
Richard Schechner, the five avant gardes or none?
Oskar Schlemmer, man and art figure
Wole Soyinka, theatre in African traditional cultures - survival patterns
Konstantin Stanislavski, intonations and pauses
Stelarc, interview
Mary Wigman, the philosophy of modern dance
Raymond Williams, argument - text and performance
Robert Wilson, interview.