Performance is transitory, it is the objects left over from performance which have entered museum collections, and often become the only trace of the performance.

Performance gallery explores the role of these makers in transforming people for public display:

- From the stage to the museum
- From masquerade to sculpture
- Unsung or anonymous
- Makers are performers

From the stage to the museum

	Ballet shoes, worn by Galina Siderenko for Les Ballets 1933, Made by Elmira Paris, 1930s, C000177

In the Western theatrical tradition, objects tended to be made to be viewed from a distance - their impact lies in bold lines rather than in details; these objects suffer a very different kind of scrutiny in the museum case.

The costumes made for the Les Ballets 1933 performances were quite ephemeral, made for a few performances only. In a museum, they have defied time, and seventy years later as we view them we are conscious of strong lines, but crude detail; tacking stitches and pins where costumes have been stitched onto their wearers.

Very ordinary objects too have been preserved and over time have acquired a different status, for example the ballet shoes cast off by the young dancers of Les Ballets 1933.

From masquerade to sculpture

	Naked Big Fish, Sokari Douglas Camp, UK, 1998, WA508365

Museums transform objects by removing them from their contexts and asking us to look at them as beautiful or interesting things in their own right.

This is particularly true of the masking traditions of West Africa. Historically, collectors have prized the carved heads of masquerade costumes and have collected these as sculptures. The costumes and other decoration have been left behind. They are often quite ephemeral, often constructed around the mask just before performance. However without them we have received a very different view of these masking traditions.

Contemporary artist Sokari Douglas Camp uses her sculpture to challenge these frozen views of West African masquerade.

Unsung or anonymous

	Set design for Fastes, 1933, Designed by Andre Derain, copy taken from the original programme. Brighton Museum, H1a-f

Some makers have made their names in other fields, and their reputation as artists now enhance the prestige of their designs for performance. For example, Andre Derain, whose theatre designs for Les Ballet 1933 helped to make the ballets renowned in the field of theatre design.

Historically, most collectors who prized and kept objects from Performance kept them as fine examples of their type and seldom recorded the names of their makers. Sometimes this will be because those names were no longer known and makers were anonymous, but most makers would have been well known within their communities.

Many of the objects on display in Performance Gallery have no recorded maker. However, informed contemporary collecting by anthropologists such as Karel Arnaut addresses some of these issues. His Bedu masquerade collection not only records the makers, but is the result of negotiations with makers who had a voice in determining the shape of the collection for the Museum.

Makers are performers

	Nicola Gunson as Mother Time Keeper, New Year Procession © Simon Dack, The Argus 2000

Many of the objects in the Performance collection were made by their performers.

A long way from his home in Burma, Panchee Nay Myo stitched elaborate dance costumes informed by his studies of traditional theatre design and using Burmese craft remnants found in London markets. Performance Gallery records the thoughts of makers who transformed themselves for public parades - Nicky Gunson made the Burning of the Clocks lantern costume, and Rose Holt, Jane Hawley and Sarah Parsons workshopped the George and the Dragon carnival costume.