This chapter introduces the book Ecologies of Community in Performance by outlining the conceptual vision of our research project and the methodological approach it undertakes. It observes that there has been a recent trend for ecological terminology to be applied metaphorically in various other areas. In particular, we note the common use of words like ecosystem and grassroots being applied to the arts. These are particularly put to use in contexts which consider ideas of community, yet as metaphors they are often used superficially and without adequate consideration of their ecological substance. We therefore propose to bring a series of ecological perspectives to case studies from the arts, exploring as we do dynamics of ecologies, community, and performance.