"There are several reasons for the great popularity of "performance" as a metaphor or analytical tool for current practitioners of so wide a range of cultural studies. One is the major shift in many cultural fields from the "what" of culture to the "how," from the accumulation of social, cultural, psychological, political or linguistic data to a consideration of how this material is created, valorized, and changed, to how it lives and operates within the culture, by its actions. Its real meaning is now sought in its praxis, its performance"

-Marvin Carlson, Performance a Critical Introduction. 195