Within dominant art historical narratives, the history of performance has often been understood as a manifestation exclusively derived
from Western creativity. This perspective has reinforced a Eurocentric framework that renders other possible genealogies of this artistic practice invisible. This essay proposes a critical revision that recognizes the colonial matrix as a constitutive element of performance history. It seeks to demonstrate how performance has been shaped by regimes of power that have inscribed subalternized bodies within practices of exhibition and spectacularization. The analysis is grounded in contemporary theoretical debates and specific historical moments that allow for the tracing of colonial inscriptions within Western performance. The essay examines various forms of display that have contributed to the configuration of a colonial scenographic regime, including cabinets of curiosities and natural history collections, human zoos and acclimatization gardens, spectacles of torture and auction, traveling sideshows, circuses and caravans, as well as the museum’s role in producing racialized pornography. This approach enables a critical unpacking of the political, cultural, and epistemological complexities that shape both the practice and theorization of performance. As such, it calls for a rewriting of its history against the grain, foregrounding historically subalternized voices, bodies, and memories, and acknowledging the colonial entanglements that continue to permeate its contemporary manifestations.
