Since her first performance work in 1974, Laurie Anderson has found herself concerned with a basic esthetic dilemma that has troubled a number of other performance artists: how to create an intensely personal art that is not just simple autobiography. How can the performer/author bring raw, unmediated materials from his/her life and structure them to strike a balance between his/her own needs and those of the audience? For Anderson, the resolution is not only intellectual but technical; it is one that leads to a new performance style.