Early performance art was improvised street theater policed by local authorities

Evidence

As Jacobs and Smith had amused themselves with street theater in New York, they began performing their Human Wreckage Revue on the beach, teaming up with two Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) students, Alice Meyers and Florence Karpf, passing the hat while a third student, nicknamed Martha the Scorch, provided their antics with a bluesy accompaniment. After the police chased them off, the abstract expressionist painter who managed the Crown & Anchor allowed Jacobs and Smith to perform their revue there for a few days. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 211