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The Forest of Performance Theories: A Review of Theories of Performance

The academic traditions of performance studies and communication studies have many overlapping historical traces, yet they still struggle to define their relationship. Performance studies is examined from a wide array of different disciplines, but all too often areas of communication are overlooked and misrepresented. In her book Theories of Performance, Elizabeth Bell responds to these demands by writing a text that holds as a primary goal defining performance theories central to the communication discipline by ‘‘starting at the intersection of communication and performance in order to make theoretical, historical, critical, and methodological connections’’ (p. xiii). This book clearly defines performance and performance theory through the lens of communication. Bell walks through each performance theory holding to her analogy ‘‘the forest for the trees,’’ by representing each theoretical focus as an individual theory that stands in a larger forest of ideas, history, and knowledge (p. 2). Bell reminds the reader of the ‘‘forest’’ by connecting each theory with tangible realities of performance that most readers can relate to in their everyday lives. Chapter 1, ‘‘Introducing Theories of Performance,’’ functions to familiarize new performance scholars to the foundational terms of the book by defining key concepts: theory, communication, and performance. Each definition reveals how all three terms are interconnected, which builds the foundation for the communicative focus of the book. Theory is created and understood through discourse, communication symbolically represents reality, and performance is the product and process of these communicative actions. The way in which the chapter is organized and written challenges readers to see theory as a tangible reality we operationalize every day of our lives. Readers become participants in performance theories by understanding performance as happening all around us. Theories of performance manifest how