Live art challenges boundaries between art and life, public and private, custom and taboo by presenting the body as an art language and medium. This seminar explores some of the practices and theories of performance art from 1960s to the present. It considers the emergence and development of performance in the context of avant-garde art movements, experimental theater, happenings, conceptual art, minimalism, body art, installation art, institutional critique, and identity politics. The intersections between practices of performance art and theories of performativity will be examined in light of issues of embodiment, feminism, sexuality, race, nationalism, and popular culture.