One thing that makes performance art difficult to understand is the absence of an agreed upon term that anyone can use to describe what artists are doing. First of all, the terms performance art  and performing arts are often used interchangeably. While the performing arts are widely accepted to be established forms such as ballet, dramatic theater, orchestra, operas, symphonies and dance. Performance art, or art performance, or live art or whatever you call it, is most certainly not this:

Art performance marks National Party Congress

The art programme, which reviewed the Vietnamese Party's and people's history over the past 70 years, consisted of three parts: "The Glorious Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV)", "The Fatherland, the Native Land and the Image of Communist Soldiers", and "Unity and Confidence to Advance under the Glorious Banner of the Party".

Songs in choruses "The CPV Acclaimed" and "Gratitude to Uncle Ho" performed by actors and actresses of the National Light Music Theatre marked the start of the art programme.

These items were followed by various songs and dances praising the CPV, the late President Ho Chi Minh, heroic Vietnamese mothers and the Vietnamese people, who have been brave in the previous resistance wars and the current national defence and construction, and who are presently united in advancement on the path toward international integration and sustainable development.

As many as 300 balloons carrying the Party and Fatherland flags were released to the sky to conclude the art programme as a display of the energy and strength of national unity.

Because of a lack of consensus on the relationship between art and performance, you have the two words combined to hawk everything from advertising "the art of performance" for import race car parts to uninspired banner waving ceremonies. And if everyone is honest, artists and performers will agree that this is not performance art and would even go so far as to say that this event is not representative of their art craft (in dance, theater, etc.) But not everyone is honest. So, a strategy to help us define what this relationship is, we can take a note from Descartes' First Meditiaton. Doubt everything and begin with what it is not.

Source
VietnamNet Bridge. Art performance marks National Party Congress