How does a performance relate to life? One may speak of a performance as condensed, distilled, concentrated life – an occasion when one's energies are intensely focused. One may also speak of performances as set apart, marked by various signals as distinct from ordinary routines of living. And one must speak of performances as embodying meaning. A performance is not necessarily more meaningful than other events in one's life, but it is more deliberately so; a performance is, among other things, a deliberate effort to represent, to say something about something.

If a performance is an action which attempts to communicate meaning, then it is never purely “form.” As I write (which is one kind of performance), I do not merely typewrite; if I did so, I could attend to form rather than meaning, as a typist could do in perfectly replicating a manuscript in a foreign language the typist does not understand. But as a would-be writer, I must struggle to ignite form with meaning, which is writing as opposed to typewriting.

These commonplace observations about the necessity of uniting form and meaning in a performance – exemplified here by the event at hand, writing, but normally by the more public performances, such as plays, rituals, concerts, and the like – leads us to our comparison of sacred and profane performances.