As critic for the Soho Weekly News and the Village Voice during the 1970s and 1980s, Sally Banes enjoyed an incomparable perspective on the development of what she describes as the mongrel, elusive, indefinable genre of performance art. In fact, Banes was present during a crucial point in that development, when a previously marginalized form took, quite literally, center stage and emerged as the preeminent form of avant-garde activity. Her reviews and articles explore the work of established artists such as Meredith Monk, Robert Wilson, Ping Chong, and Joan Jonas; events by the Bread and Puppet Theater, Robert Whitman, Charlotte Moorman, and Chris Burden; revivals of classic avant-garde performances; and the emergence of famous (and some notorious) performers such as Anne Bogart, Karen Finley, Spalding Gray, Steve Buscemi, Tim Miller, and Whoopi Goldberg. The depth and breadth of Banes's criticism realizes not only the continuing growth and development of American performance, but also the complex and sometimes surprising intersection of performance with the other side of the art/life divide, the paratheater of Japanese tea ceremonies, cat shows, circuses, art exhibits, and amateur nights at the Apollo.