Can religious ritual dancing, like those of Native Americans, also be called “performance art”?
No, I would stay by “religious ritual dancing”. Except, of course, if it only looks like religious ritual dancing and it is actually done with an intention of doing performance art. “Performance art is a term usually reserved to refer to a more conceptual art which conveys a content-based meaning in a more drama-related sense, rather than being simple performance for its own sake for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, performance art can include any type of physical stage performance which is not an exhibition of direct artistry such as theater, music or dance, but rather incorporates satirical or conceptual elements; an example of this is Blue Man Group.” Source and further information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance_art “Anthropologists and archaeologists hypothesize that people all over the world have composed and performed for many different reasons; religious ceremonies, rituals, healing, rites of passage, socialization, theatre, celebration, and unification.
