Book excerpt: This text is aimed at undergraduates on Drama / Theatre Studies, English and Cultural Studies degrees and at specialist drama bookshops. This book explores ways in which ideas and practices emerging in art, architecture and music have been taken up and developed in recent performance. Setting the notion of a postmodern style against a broader concept of the postmodern work, the study considers various forms of performance art, dance and theatre which define themselves in opposition to self-consciously modernist modes of work. In doing so, the book seeks to describe a position underlying a range of forms which opposes notions of the self-contained, autonomous art-work and may be understood in relation to concepts of the postmodern defined in criticism, philosophy and cultural theory. It aims to offer a broad-ranging understanding of postmodernism in art, architecture, music and performance, before engaging in a detailed consideration of postmodernism and the performance arts. It is a useful guide and reference book to modernism / post-modernism especially for Theatre Studies / Drama degrees.