Performance-based Cultural Heritage includes all activities that are generally within the broad family of ‘performance’, which includes dance, theatre, music and other performed events that might cross over those boundaries (such as opera, physical theatre, and contemporary practices such as ‘live arts’). Performance-based Cultural Heritage may in some ways be synonymous with ‘intangible Cultural Heritage’ because the heritage that is transmitted through generations is largely ephemeral and is communicated through the performer’s body in space and time, sometimes in conjunction with instruments and technologies, and in association with other artistic practices (such as set, lighting and costume design). Performance-based Cultural Heritage may be documented in multiple ways to provide some access to the ‘work’, which may be through image, film, scores, texts, objects, performance posters and other forms of performance-related documentation.
