Between bodies and the archive: Situating the act

ABSTRACTThis article explores one aspect of a doctoral research project concerned with dance, ephemerality and the archive. It draws upon notions of embodied knowledge, memory and lived experience in order to negotiate their value as archival sources within the context of dance reconstruction. Considering the work of a living contemporary dance company, the discussion illustrates the redundancy of ‘extant’ archival materials in a live reconstructive context. In a time of increasing possibilities for digital documentation, the discussion highlights the value inherent in the somatic and spatial qualities of dance and problematizes their absence from the archive.