Performa is a non-profit arts organization well known for the Performa Biennial, a festival of performance art that happens in various venues and institutions in New York city every other year. Performa was founded by RoseLee Goldberg, historian and curator of contemporary performance art. The organization also commissions new works, tours performances premiered at the biennial, and manages the work of choreographer and filmmaker, Yvonne Rainer.
In 2005 Performa hosted the first Performa Biennial, a series of performance events at venues and institutions across New York City. Founding curator and editor, RoseLee Goldberg is quoted as saying her objective in creating the festival was "to produce new work that I'd never seen before and have the miracle of working with artists who would make things of wonder. The second was to deal with this history." The festival presents new works by artists working in performance, first performance works by artists working in other mediums, and re-staging of seminal performance works from history.
For the 2005 Biennial the Solomon R. Guggenheim presented Marina Abramović's Seven Easy Pieces, in which Abramović re-performed several works from the canon of early performance works, including two of her own. Performances included works by Gina Pane, Vito Acconci, Valie Export, Bruce Nauman, and Joseph Beuys.