A figure for all genres

At the descriptive level there is no detail of performance that occurs everywhere under all circumstances. Nor is it easy to specify limitations on what is, or could be treated as, performance. Figure 2.1 is an exemplary but somewhat serendipitous panorama of just how diverse and extensive the performance world is. Criteria for inclusion in the chart were: (1) events called performances in this or that culture; (2) events treated “as performance“ by scholars. I limited myself as much as possible to events that I have either seen or studied. I wanted to fight the tendency to seek “origins” or “sources” in performances below the horizons of fieldwork or reliable historical research. I took my cue from anthropological fieldwork: the evidence I sought was in vivo, close at hand, mostly from the practices of living people. I know that another person could make another time-space-event chart populated by different items. But I believe the outcome would be a similar riot of apparently disparate particulars. What hope is there of unifying such a figure?

If “universals” are wanted, they might be found in processual models explaining how one set of genres, ritual performances for example, become other sets. Does ritual “evolve” into dance, theatre, and sports, and if so how? This search for universals occupied Victor Turner during much of his life.