Radical Performance

If a man is being willingly dragged down the road by another man, is that a performance? If everyone passing by deems it a "performance," then it's OK to walk on, laugh, smirk, or admire such radical histrionics. If it's a performance, then it automatically has no tangible effect, or is thought to have no tangible effect. But a snapped spine or bloody hand is an effect of a series of actions & yet it's deemed a "performance" just as a play would be, or a musical act. Of course, pedestrians might yell, raise a fit, tell the "performers" to "take it somewhere else" like to a pre-ordained performance space, a place where rituals are enacted beneath the security of concrete ceilings, barricaded by rows of cushioned seats & surrounded by a wall of benumbed gazes. An element of drama is distilled from a theatrical performance. The audience has agreed to participate in the event & therefore the chances of total surprise are minimized. They expect drama & are not as affected when it occurs. Whereas when performances are enacted in streets or in other frequently stultifying environments, then surprise is maximized, pedestrians automatically become audience members & are hurled into a thicket of emotional responses that've they neither prepared for nor have much control over. Drama is reinstated. The most effective performances are those that redefine the very nature of performance, that turn citizens immediately into audience members, that truly dramatize their daily lives where the rituals of urban motion crash into the rituals of a spontaneous performance.