The fluid nature of performance studies and the widening embrace of the idea of performativity have come together in Decomposition to produce a collection that crosses disciplinary lines of academic work. The essays move from the local to the global, from history to sport, from body parts to stage productions, and from race relations to global politics. In the title essay, Elizabeth Wood writes about a basic human relation cast around the question of performance and triangulated by the role that a great performer took within it. Together these essays pursue critical understandings of performance in our postmodern world.