'Lesbian' as an identificatory term has come under scrutiny from within a variety of debates. Each debate has offered a correction to the term, appropriate to the concerns of its critique. For example, sex radicals proffer the term 'dyke' to supersede the association between lesbian and the anti-pornography movement, and a younger generation has invented the term 'grrls' to mark a new form of sexual

gender identification. Yet nowhere is the term less stable in its referent, or more complex in its resonances, than when it circulates within the international context. This chapter seeks to formulate the question: 'Is it possible to frame a lesbian identification within and across national and cultural borders?' Specific to the concerns of this volume, the question might be: 'Is there a way to understand something called lesbian performance, which might apply across national and cultural differences?' These questions raise issues of forms of performance address and reception. Yet they also rest on a sense of how lesbian identities are structured within and through national and economic agendas. So, considerations of performance production and reception will intertwine with formulations of national identities to create a notion of how to recognise and respond to lesbian performance in the international arena.