Everything Is Performance.

Performance Studies constitutes a field of knowledge and research that first developed in American university departments of theater and drama in the 1970s, reflecting the understanding that “performance” is not only the defining feature of the Performing Arts (realized as an onstage “show”) but also the operating method of all human behavior and social interactions. Performance Studies looks into and analyzes the various ways in which performance forms our life and generates meaning. The present article reviews the emergence of Performance Studies in relation to the significant “performative turn” in the social sciences and the philosophy of language, introduces some of its principal propositions, and ponders its still-limited assimilation in Israeli academe as a method of qualitative research and critical praxis.