Performance art revisited Oxford big time earlier this month with two artists presenting intriguing and challenging performance works that demonstrate polar ends of the live art spectrum. In the corner for fine art, gallery-based performance art: over seven evenings, Kirsten Norrie (pictured) at the increasingly dynamic OVADA Gallery in Gloucester Green, performed her new work 7,013g. Based on the specific mass of six of her internal organs - obtained using MRI - Norrie attempted she said, to "generate an anatomy" that drew on specific visual descriptions of the organs of the body.

Rooted in eclectic research in metaphysics and metaphor, and using a variety of objects and actions in the works - a sunbed, a clay head, self-hypnosis, a suit of armour, for instance - Norrie fully exploited her extraordinarily intense and compelling presence as a performer. Intention reeked from every gesture, and incisive timing delivered works that were captivating and, although seemingly opaque in meaning, did in atmosphere allude to the mystery of the unseen interior of the body. It's a big ask - to turn out every evening for seven nights to follow an art work. Though perhaps a little heavy in its academic cladding, it was well worth the effort. This is art for the initiated, for sure, but a fine example of the type.

In the perhaps more accessible, theatre-based live art corner, a disappointingly small audience were treated to an energetic piece of physical theatre by the sinewy and experienced performance artist Bill Aitchison at the Burton Taylor Theatre. Greeting us amiably as we entered the splendidly empty and very adaptable theatre space, Aitchison informed us that the piece would be participatory in a very unintimidating way. Indeed it was. Props were shoved at us throughout the hour-long work, which used the tape-recorded sound as a construct to prompt the performer to make an increasingly wild and comedic series of repetitive actions that contrasted the story of Noah with a spoof weather forecast of the recent gales while he attempted to make a salad and wash his hair. Nonsense? All sense? Who cares! Despite the rather too obvious devices employed to propel the work forward, it was an hour of great fun and a fine demonstration of the inventiveness and courage of the solo performer. Well done OVADA and Burton Taylor Theatre - we need waking from our winter somnambulism. This type of adventurous programming will do the job nicely.