performance art

American  

noun

1. a collaborative art form originating in the 1970s as a fusion of several artistic media, as painting, film, video, music, drama, and dance, and deriving in part from the 1960s performance happenings.

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performance art British  

noun

1. a theatrical presentation that incorporates various art forms, such as dance, sculpture, music, etc

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Other Word Forms

• performance artist noun

Etymology

Origin of performance art

First recorded in 1970–75

Example Sentences

"There's a lot going on with that little inflatable frog," says LM Bogad, a professor at University of California, Davis and a Guggenheim Fellow who specialises in performance art.

From BBC

Think of an Egyptian Lover set as a piece of performance art that takes you somewhere both far away and eerily familiar — yesterday, tomorrow, Egypt, South-Central.

From Los Angeles Times

The exhibition displays over 200 different works drawn from the multiple disciplines Ono has engaged with across almost seven decades, whether film, music, conceptual or performance art, and also includes her continuing peace activism.

From Salon

“It’s not exactly traditional performance art, but I believe that spaces like lectures and readings can be made performative.”

From Los Angeles Times

The first few events sat somewhere between performance art and pure anarchy.

From The Wall Street Journal