Research Paper on:
A History of Performance Art

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
the performance itself. Yet the form continues to make its own history today. Bibliography lists 6 sources. BBprfart.doc HISTORY OF PERFORMANCE  ART Written by B. Bryan Babcock for the Paperstore, Inc., March 2001 Introduction Performance art is a confrontational art experience, whether one chooses to say that the art  form begins in the sixteenth century with Comedia del Arte, political street theater, or the recorded fistfight that broke out in the beginning of the twentieth century, over artistic definitions  about "futurism." Both forms were Italian, and both began with audience participation in the performance itself, and to some extent those forms, even in their earliest stages can be  seen or included in performance art today. Although our discussion is labeled a "history," it is important to see how this definition of "peformance art" has evolved. Difficult to  define Remember going shopping with a friend and being told, "I will know it when I see it?" It would almost seem as though performance art is a similar  type of theatrical "critter." In order to know its story, we almost have to know what it is, before we can determine when it had a "beginning," if  it still has a "middle," or whether we can contemplate that it will have an" end." According to Jack Bowman (1993), "1. A performance art piece is unprecedented. 2. It  is difficult to censor since it has a good possibility of never being done before. 3. It is usually very current. This means that it is usually relevant of today  because of the short time between conception and performance. 4. Performance art can involve the audience with taste, smell and sounds not available with electronic media and not practical with