Aristotle's Vitalism

Aristotle did a lot of thinking based on his observations of the world. It was his observations that got him to begin questioning, and the questions led to more observations. He worked to discover essential qualities and find rules and definitions for the structures that governed the organization of the world.

One of the basic principles he questioned and sought to define was the difference between what was alive and what was dead. He came up with rules that could determine if a thing was animate and inanimate, and examine properties that drove the living force from a creature to make it dead? He determined that the living force was a "vital" quality. For two millennia people sought to measure or capture this vital quality, this living spark.

Vitalism survived as a science until the late nineteenth century. 

While it is no longer a "science", I do think this question of vitalism applies to the performative arts. 

I once heard playwright Romulus Linney state, "I can tell you how to write a play and how to make characters move, but what I can't tell you is what to do to make the damn thing alive up there."

How does performance become "alive"?