Fifty Key Performance Artists

Introduction

T. Nikki Cesare Schotzko and Adriana Disman

1.     Chumpon Apisuk

Sareena Sattapon

2.     Arahmaiani

Tony Godfrey

3.     Jelili Atiku

Khanya Mashabela

4.     Aye Ko

Ilka Theurich

5.     Adina Bar-On

Ilka Theurich

6.     Rebecca Belmore

Jenn Cole

7.     Rocío Boliver

Esther Neff

8.     Lorenza Böttner

Giorelle Diokno

9.     Leigh Bowery

Sofia Vranou

10.  Tania Bruguera

Esther Neff

11.  Chen Jin

Cai Qing

12.  Nikhil Chopra

Teena Lange

13.  Vaginal Davis

troizel

14.  Vlasta Delimar

Sam Čermák

15.  Manmeet Devgun

Promona Sengupta

16.  Disabled Avant-Garde

Jessica Watkin

17.  Esther Ferrer

Francisco-Fernando Granados

18.  Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi aka crazinisT artist

Khanya Mashabela

19.  Regina José Galindo

Promona Sengupta

20.  Tara and Razieh Goudarzi

Marjan Moosavi

21.  Kamil Guenatri

Adriana Disman

22.  He Yunchang

Adriana Disman

23.  Adrian Howells

Ilana Khanin

24.  Tari Ito

Adriana Disman

25.  Emily Jacir

Rah Eleh

26.  Kollektivnye Deistviya / Collective Actions

Tatjana Kijaniza

27.  Lee Wen

Ray Langenbach

28.  Alastair MacLennan

Dominic Thorpe

29.  Tanya Mars

Didier Morelli

30.  Karel Miler

Sam Čermák

31.  Şükran Moral

Teena Lange and Ayşe Erek

32.  Eli Neira

Ilana Khanin and Christine Mazumdar

33.  Boris Nieslony

Michael Barrett

34.  Lorraine O’Grady

Vanessa Damilola Macaulay

35.  Clifford Owens

troizel

36.  Clemente Padín

Camila Arroyo Romero

37.  Graciela Ovejero Postigo

Paul Couillard

38.  Ashmina Ranjit

Constantine Lignos

39.  Rosanna Raymond

Cornelia Leunig and Rainer Wichering

40.  Tracey Rose

Khanya Mashabela

41.  Rosemberg Sandoval

Adriana Disman

42.  Hassan Sharif

Adriana Disman

43.  Seiji Shimoda

Jenn Cole and Christine Mazumdar

44.  Latai Taumoepeau

Shivanjani Lal

45.  Sylvie Tourangeau

Didier Morelli

46.  Voina

Tatjana Kijaniza and Ilka Theurich

47.  Zbigniew Warpechowski

Adriana Disman

48.  Leafā Wilson aka Olga Krause

Cornelia Leunig and Rainer Wichering

49.  Watan Wuma

Wu Sih-Fong (English translation by Tzu-Yu Hung)

50.  Márcia X

Ilana Khanin and Christine Mazumdar

Biography

T. Nikki Cesare Schotzko, PhD, is Associate Professor at the Centre for Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies, University of Toronto, Canada. Her first book, Learning How to Fall: Art and Culture after September 11 (Routledge, 2015), investigates the changing relationship between world events and their subsequent documentation in mainstream and social media. Her recent projects explore the potential of performance to enact radical care. She has published articles and reviews in journals including TDR, Performance Research, and the International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media, among others, and dramaturged experimental music-theatre and theatre productions in Canada, Mexico, and the US. 

Adriana Disman, PhD, is a performance artist and writer. Disman’s performance has been presented internationally since 2010 and they have curated performance art events and residencies in Toronto, Montreal, New York City, London, and Berlin. Their writing on performance—particularly that which is perceived as “self-harming”—appears in Performance Research, C Magazine, Canadian Theatre Review, Theatre Research in Canada, and More Caught in the Act, among others. Disman holds a PhD in Drama from Queen Mary University of London, UK, and was awarded the 2025 CATR Richard Plant Award and the 2018 GOG Art Writing Award.

"Fifty Key Performance Artists brings to the fore influential and often overlooked artists from around the world. Clear, engaging, comprehensive, and thoughtfully organised, this book will be a vital resource for students, scholars, and anyone interested in how performance art shapes cultures, identities, and activisms, in the past and in the present." 

Dominic Johnson, author of Unlimited Action: The Performance of Extremity in the 1970s