Cover ; Half Title ; Title Page ; Copyright Page ; Dedication ; Table of Contents ; List of illustrations; Foreword: On meeting on an edge; Preface; Acknowledgements; 1. Background ; Context; The background of practice; Solo street shows; Philippe Petit; The 'Winner Effect'; The background of ideas; Play; Risk; Fools and bouffons; Chaos/complexity theories; 'Centres' and 'communitas' ; 'Popular' ; The provocation process; Analogies and questions; The artists; 2. Stasis and chaos ; Structure and improvisation; Mirroring; Choral work; The fulcrum analogy; Leo Bassi: clown activist
Personal risk, popularity and power Power negotiations in the Big Brother intervention ; Incitement; Big Brother description ; Controls and adaptability; Centres and their reaction to Revelacion ; Centres; Activation; Ambivalence and the Bassibus ; The Bassibus ; 3. On the edge of chaos ; The Bigheads; The blade analogy; Sacha Baron Cohen: the joker; Borat at the rodeo; Power play in the rodeo scene; Risk and its effects; Complexity theory and the collapse of a horse; Centres under interrogation; The Paul Wilmot interview; Centres in other interviews; Bruno at the training camp
Game-play and resisting conversionPlay and ethical fluidity ; Ali G at Harvard University; Conclusion; 4. Order out of chaos ; An incident in Exeter; Entity and environment: the border analogy; Banksy: the outlaw; The invisible man; Presence and absence; Banksy and the Tesco riots; The border of acceptability; Popularity and challenge at the Bristol exhibition; Museum as centre; City as centre; Conclusion; 5. Comparisons ; Comparing the key artists; Comparing Pussy Riot and Burlesque; Pussy Riot; Burlesque; Conclusion; 6. Provocateurs provoked ; Contest or collusion; Circus complexity
Circus outside inNew circus: emergence and atrophy; The 'life' of Archaos ; Provocateurs provoked; Conclusion; Index
