This chapter explores performance as a channel for communities and diverse subjectivities to express dissent within and against the public sphere in contemporary arts. Building on Diana Taylor’s (2016) concept of performance as world-making, I argue that performances occupy a transitional public-private space in the art scene, like the dynamics of social and political movements. The notion that bodies, not just books and artifacts, produce, store, and transfer knowledge is well-established. However, the merging of art with society, politics, and sociology—evident in the rise of social, participatory, and activist art—demands fresh legal reflection. These unconventional participatory practices can spark emerging democratic alternatives. By diachronically analyzing Italian fieldwork from the late 1960s to the late 1970s (Caleo et al. 2021) and engaging with performers and performance scholars, I will examine the nature and impact of performance—what it reveals, enables, and theorizes—and its complex interaction with legal institutions. Emphasizing diverse subjectivities in decision-making and allowing dissent within performance practices, I contend that legal change can occur both during and after performances, with artists actions designed to provoke long-term shifts in the normative sphere.