Knowing in Motion. Dance, body, archive

Save the Date - We conclude the research project with a conference at the Royal Danish Library on 10 September 2025. More information and a registration link will follow.

To deepen the understanding of dance as cultural heritage, the project investigates how dancers in dialogue with archival source materials may activate corporeal insights and traces from past dances. Moreover, we ask how these corporeal insights may become part of the archival institution.

Taking the embodied archives of the artists as a source of insight we examine questions of - among other topics - the bodily transfer of knowledge, archive building and temporality. 

The project draws on archival source material from three historical case studies. These are distributed across different choreographers, genres, and institutional frames for the artistic production:

  • 1915 – 1925 Emilie Walbom, the first female choreographer at the Royal Danish Theatre.
  • 1965 – 1985 Doug Crutchfield, jazz dancer, choreographer, and pedagogue with their own school in Copenhagen.
  • 1989 – 1999 Micado danse Ensemble, independently producing dance company under the artistic leadership of Mikala Bjarnov Lage and Charlotte Rindom.

Integrating artistic and theoretical explorations, the project activates the embodied archives of the artists as a source of insight to examine - among other topics - the bodily transfer of knowledge, overlapping temporalities and participatory archive building.

In this project we ask, what we can learn from the corporeal knowledge of dance that rarely finds its way into the archival institution?

Karen Arnfred Vedel, PI
Margrethe Brock-Nielsen in Emilie Walbom’s choreography for Adam Oehlenschläger’s orientalist drama Aladdin. The Royal Danish Theatre, 1919. Photographer unknown.

Margrethe Brock-Nielsen in Emilie Walbom’s choreography for Adam Oehlenschläger’s orientalist drama Aladdin. The Royal Danish Theatre, 1919. Photographer unknown.

 

 

 

 

 

  • April 2023 - Project presentation in the research cluster Global Entanglements
  • June 2023 – Project panel in the 2023 EASTAP conference  in Aarhus (Dimensions of dramaturgy)
  • June 2023 – visit to the archives of the Dance Museum in Stockholm
  • August 2023 – Workshop #1 Emilie Walbom
  • November 2023 – Visit to NYPL Dance Collection
  • November 2023 – FBP lecture at the symposium “An der Quelle. Zum kritisch-künstlerischen und wissenschaflichen Umgang mit Dokumenten und Traditionen” in Lenbachhaus, München
  • April 2024 – KV and FBP lecture demonstration at international danseforskningskonference NOFOD in Oslo. 
  • Juni 2024 – FBP paper presentation at Performance Studies international (PSi) conference in London.
  • August 2024 – Workshop #2: Doug Crutchfield
  • December 2024 – KV and AL presentations in Document! Share! Reactivate! Seminar, organised by BIRCA.
  • January 2025 – Workshop # 3: Micado Danseteater
  • Spring 2025 – Visit to Deutsches Tanzarchiv Köln
  • September 2025 – final conference

 

 

  • Workshop # 1. Artistic consultants: Tim Matiakis; Carolina Bäckman & Andrea Deres from Danish Dance Stories. Dancers: Alice Martucci, Louise Mochia, Morten Eggert and Tim Matiakis
  • Workshop # 2. Artistic consultants: Charlotte Broberg. Dancers: Malene Schiønning, Luise Mochia, Beck Heiberg and Charlotte Broberg. 
  • Workshop # 3. Artistic consultants: Charlotte Rindom. Dancers: Femke Mølbach Slot, Esther Wrobel, Max Wallmeier and Andrea Deres.

 

 

 

Researchers

Internal

Name Title Phone E-mail
Franziska Bork-Petersen Associate Professor E-mail
Karen Arnfred Vedel Associate Professor +4535329290 E-mail

Funding

Co-funders are Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, Copenhagen University and The Royal Danish Library

Project period: 2023-2026

PI: Karen Vedel