PANEL 2: DANCE ARCHIVAL ENCOUNTERS IN PRESENT TIME
Karen Vedel (University of Copenhagen), Anna Lawaetz (The Royal Danish Library), Franziska Bork Petersen (University of Copenhagen) with Carolina Bäckman (freelance dance practitioner)
In our conference contribution, we want to present the basis and preliminary insights of the threeyear research project Knowing in Motion: dance, body, archive.* The project explores and emphasizes choreographic heritage as a living history. The individual contributions to the panel use dramaturgy as a bracket to frame the relational dynamic between dance historical material and its contemporary ‘activation’. We present our reflections on and initial approaches to working with dance archival materials, such as scores, costumes, photographs, rehearsal notes or diary entries. What kinds of knowledge can be (re)created in the transtemporal encounters of archival material with contemporary bodies? How can these encounters be framed and facilitated? And what kind of archival questions does the new creation raise in the context of a national archival institution when re-archived? In the research project, more broadly, we develop artistic methodologies to activate dance historical material. Our aim is to engage and include affective and embodied dimensions of dance history and integrate their exploration with that of facts and fictions about past dance practices. The panel contributions will draw on existing theorizations on dance archival activation to scrutinize choreographic knowledge and its embodied transmission. The panel relates to suggested topics in the conference’s second thematic node: ‘the here-and-now actuality in theatre and performance of the past, the present and the future’, ‘politics of the archive and artistic heritage’ and ‘alternative epistemologies’. *Knowing in Motion: dance, body, archive [Viden i bevægelse: Dans, krop, arkiv] is supported by the Augustinus Foundation’s reserve for Cultural Heritage 2023-2026. The project is hosted by Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, Copenhagen University in partnership with the Danish 180 Royal Library. The research group consists of Karen Vedel (PI), Anna Lawaetz and Franziska Bork Petersen.