Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T05:48:43.311Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Choreographing American Dance Archives: Artist-Driven Archival Projects by Eiko & Koma, Bebe Miller Company, and Jennifer Monson

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 May 2018

Abstract

Choreographers have begun experimenting with artist-driven archives using digital technologies, exhibitions and installations, and live performance as a way to generate new work from their own archival materials and increase access to their body of work for audiences. This article focuses on three recent artist-driven archive projects by notable American choreographers Eiko & Koma, Bebe Miller Company, and Jennifer Monson. Drawing on interviews with the choreographers as well as on analyses of the three projects, I suggest that these projects' most important contribution is the idea that archives are not separate from a choreographer's body of work, but are indeed a part of his or her creative process and artistic production.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Dance Studies Association 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

#JEZ3PREZ & ATCHU. 2012. “On the Question of the Anarchives of Occupy Wall Street.Emisferica 9 (1–2). Accessed May 7, 2013. http://hemisphericinstitute.org/hemi/en/e-misferica-91/jez3prezaatchu.Google Scholar
Artist-Driven Archives. n.d. Accessed June 22, 2016. https://artistdrivenarchives.wordpress.com/.Google Scholar
Artist-Driven Archives. n.d. “About.” Accessed June 22, 2016. https://artistdrivenarchives.wordpress.com/about/.Google Scholar
Artist-Driven Archives. n.d. “Archiving Artistic Legacy Focus Group.” Accessed June 22, 2016. https://artistdrivenarchives.wordpress.com/focus-groups/archiving-artistic-legacy-focus-group/.Google Scholar
Artist-Driven Archives. n.d. “Project Background.” Accessed June 22, 2016. https://artistdrivenarchives.wordpress.com/about/project-background/.Google Scholar
Artist-Driven Archives. n.d., “Focus Groups.” Accessed June 22, 2016. https://artistdrivenarchives.wordpress.com/focus-groups/.Google Scholar
Auslander, Philip. 2006. “The Performativity of Performance Documentation.” PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 84: 110.Google Scholar
Baxmann, Inge. 2007. “The Body as Archive: On the Difficult Relationship between Movement and History.” In Knowledge in Motion: Perspectives of Artistic and Scientific Research in Dance, edited by Gehm, Sabine, Husemann, Pirkko, and von Wilcke, Katharina, 207–16. Bielefeld, Germany: TanzScripte Verlag.Google Scholar
Bebe Miller Company. 2015. Dance Fort: A History. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press.Google Scholar
Bebe Miller Company. n.d. “Projects.” Accessed March 15, 2014. http://bebemillercompany.org/projects/.Google Scholar
Bebe Miller Company. n.d. “A History.” Accessed March 15, 2014. http://bebemillercompany.org/works/a-history/.Google Scholar
Bench, Harmony. 2017. “Dancing in Digital Archives: Circulation, Pedagogy, Performance.” In Transmission in Motion: The Technologizing of Dance, edited by Bleeker, Maaike, 155–67. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bleeker, Maaike A. 2010. “What If This Were an Archive?RTRSRCH 2, (2): 35.Google Scholar
Bleeker, Maaike A. 2012. “(Un)Covering Artistic Thought Unfolding.” Dance Research Journal 44 (2): 1325.Google Scholar
Borggreen, Gundhild, and Gade, Rune, eds. 2013. Performing Archives/Archives of Performance. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press.Google Scholar
Boynton, Andrew. 2013. “They Have a History.” The New Yorker, April 29. Accessed December 8, 2016. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/they-have-a-history.Google Scholar
Brown, Carol. 2017. “Entangled histories, part 1: Releasing the Archive.” Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices 9 (1): 5774.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burt, Ramsay. 2003. “Memory, Repetition and Critical Intervention: The Politics of Historical Reference in Recent European Dance Performance.” Performance Research 8 (2): 3441.Google Scholar
Candelario, Rosemary. 2016. Flowers Cracking Concrete: Eiko & Koma's Asian/American Choreographies. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.Google Scholar
Cannon, Braden. 2013. “Evidence of Artistic Process in Performing Arts Records.” Canadian Theatre Review 156 (Fall): 3539.Google Scholar
Center for Creative Research. n.d. “ARTchive.” Accessed March 6, 2015. http://centerforcreativeresearch.org/research/artchive/ (website no longer active).Google Scholar
Cook, Terry. 2001. “Archival Science and Postmodernism: New Formulations for Old Concepts.” Archival Science 1 (1): 324.Google Scholar
Dance Chronicle. 2011a. “Preserving Dance as a Living Legacy.” Special Issue, edited by Brooks, Lynn Matluck and Meglin, Joellen A., 34 (1): 1145.Google Scholar
Dance Chronicle. 2011b. “Today's Dances Tomorrow: Preserving Dance in Diaspora.” Special Issue, edited by Brooks, Lynn Matluck and Meglin, Joellen A., 34 (3): 349486.Google Scholar
Dance Research Journal. 2012. Edited by Mark Franko 44 (2): 194.Google Scholar
David Gordon: Archiveography – Under Construction. 2016. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, December 6–April 6.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques. 1996. Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression. Translated by Prenowitz, Eric. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Digital Dance Archives. Accessed November 23, 2016. http://www.dance-archives.ac.uk/.Google Scholar
Eiko & Koma. n.d. Accessed August 20, 2016. http://www.eikoandkoma.org/home.Google Scholar
Eiko & Koma. n.d. “About Our Retrospective Project.” Accessed August 20, 2016. http://eikoandkoma.org/index.php?p=ek&id=1988.Google Scholar
Eiko & Koma. n.d. “Retrospective Project.” Accessed August 20, 2016. http://eikoandkoma.org/retrospectiveproject.Google Scholar
Eiko & Koma. 2010. Naked. Living installation at the Walker Art Center, November 2–30, choreographed by Eiko & Koma.Google Scholar
Eiko & Koma. 2011. Eiko & Koma: Time is Not Even, Space is Not Empty. Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, June 24 – November 13.Google Scholar
Esling, Natalia. 2013. “Dance Archives in an Online Environment: The Impact of Digital Media on the Preservation of Dance History.” Canadian Theatre Review 156 (Fall): 3034.Google Scholar
Enwezor, Okwui. 2008. Archive Fever: Uses of the Document in Contemporary Art. Göttingen, Germany: Steidl/ICP.Google Scholar
Foster, Hal. 2004. “An Archival Impulse.” October 110 (Fall): 322.Google Scholar
Foster, Susan. 1986. Reading Dancing: Bodies and Subjects in Contemporary American Dance. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1972. The Archaeology of Knowledge: The Discourse on Language. Translated by Smith, A.M. Sheridan. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1995. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, 2d edition. Translated by Sheridan, Alan. New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Goldman, Danielle. 2015. “Turning toward Trisha Brown: Valiance and Fragility in Beth Gill's New Work for the Desert.” TDR: The Drama Review 59 (3): 1728.Google Scholar
Griffiths, Laura. 2013. “Between Bodies and the Archive: Situating the Act.” International Journal of Performance Arts & Digital Media 9 (1): 183–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hubbard, Rob. 2013. “Review: Bebe Miller Company Dares to Define Dance.” Pioneer Press, February 11. Accessed November 22, 2017. http://www.twincities.com/2013/02/11/review-bebe-miller-company-dares-to-define-dance/.Google Scholar
Hudson, Julia. 2012. “Access and Collective Memory in Online Dance Archives.” Journal of Media Practice 13 (3): 285301.Google Scholar
iLand: Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art Nature and Dance. “iLAB Residency Archive.” Accessed August 8, 2017. http://www.ilandart.org/ilab/archive/Google Scholar
Kennedy, Christopher, and Holt, Ann. 2016. “Tracing the Horizon: iLANDing as Radical Archive Practice and Pedagogy.” Radical Teacher 105 (Summer): 6168.Google Scholar
Kosstrin, Hannah. 2016. “Review: Dance Fort: A History by Bebe Miller.” The International Journal of Screendance 6: 205209.Google Scholar
Kourlas, Gia. 2013. “With Nagging Questions, Looking Back on a Decade.” New York Times, April 16. Accessed April 17, 2013. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/17/arts/dance/a-history-at-the-kumble-theater.html.Google Scholar
Lepecki, André. 2010. “The Body as Archive: Will to Re-Enact and the Afterlives of Dances.” Dance Research Journal 42 (2): 2848.Google Scholar
Leyva, Rachael Riggs. 2011. Bebe Miller Archive 2011. Accessed February 1, 2012. https://bbmarchives2011.wordpress.com/.Google Scholar
Leyva, Rachael Riggs. 2015. “Dance Literacy in the Studio: Partnering Movement Texts and Residual Texts.” PhD diss., Ohio State University.Google Scholar
Live Dancing Archive. 2013. “About the Archive.” Accessed January 13, 2014. http://www.livedancingarchive.org/providence/pawtucket/index.php/About/Index.Google Scholar
Miller, Bebe. 2014. Interview with the author. Skype, January 9.Google Scholar
Monson, Jennifer. 2000–06. BIRDBRAIN. Series of site-specific improvised dances following the migratory patterns of various birds.Google Scholar
Monson, Jennifer. 2014. Interview with the author. Google Hangout. March 12.Google Scholar
Nachbar, Martin. 2012. “Training Remembering.” Dance Research Journal 44 (2): 511.Google Scholar
Osthoff, Simone. 2009. Performing the Archive: The Transformation of the Archive in Contemporary Art from Repository of Documents to Art Medium. New York: Atropos Press.Google Scholar
Otake, Eiko. 2012. “Eiko & Koma: The Retrospective Project (2009–2012).” Accessed November 30, 2012. http://eikoandkoma.org/sites/ek/files/RetrospectiveProject_Eikoreflections_121017.pdf.Google Scholar
Pape, Toni, Solomon, Noémie, and Thain, Alanna. 2014. “Welcome to This Situation: Tino Sehgal's Impersonal Ethics.” Dance Research Journal 46 (3): 89100.Google Scholar
Performance Archiving Performance. 2013. New Museum, November 6, 2013 – January 12, 2014.Google Scholar
Phelan, Peggy. 1993. Unmarked: The Politics of Performance. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Reason, Matthew. 2003. “Archive or Memory? The Detritus of Live Performance.” New Theatre Quarterly 19 (1): 8289.Google Scholar
Reason, Matthew. 2006. Documentation, Disappearance and the Representation of Live Performance. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Residue: Installation by Eiko & Koma. 2011. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Astor Gallery, July 20 – October 30.Google Scholar
Rothfuss, Joan, ed. 2011. Eiko & Koma: Time Is Not Even Space Is Not Empty. Minneapolis: Walker Art Center.Google Scholar
Sachsenmaier, Stefanie. 2013. “Reinventing the Past: Rosemary Butcher Encounters Allan Kaprow's 18 Happenings in 6 Parts.” Choreographic Practices 4 (2): 223–44.Google Scholar
Schneider, Rebecca. 2011. Performing Remains: Art and War in Times of Theatrical Reenactment. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Segal, Lewis. 2013. “Review: Bebe Miller's ‘History’ Undercuts the Dance at REDCAT.” Los Angeles Times, April 5. Accessed December 8, 2016. http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/05/entertainment/la-et-cm-bebe-miller-dance-redcat-20130405.Google Scholar
Siobhan Davies RePlay: The Choreographic Archive of Siobhan Davies Dance. Accessed September 2, 2016. http://www.siobhandaviesreplay.com/Google Scholar
Smith, Imogen. 2012. “The Dance Heritage Coalition: Passing on the Vitality of American Dance.” Dance Chronicle 35 (2): 250–58.Google Scholar
Stalpaert, Christel. 2011. “Reenacting Modernity: Fabian Barba's A Mary Wigman Dance Evening (2009).” Dance Research Journal 43 (1): 9095.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, Diana. 2003. The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Diana. 2012. “Save As.Emisferica 9 (1–2). Accessed May 7, 2013. http://hemisphericinstitute.org/hemi/en/e-misferica-91/taylor (link no longer active).Google Scholar
Whatley, Sarah. 2013a. “Dance Encounters Online: Digital Dance Archives and Performance.” In Performing Archives/Archives of Performance, edited by Borggreen, Gundhild and Gade, Rune, 163–78. Copenhagen, Denmark: Museum Tusculanum Press.Google Scholar
Whatley, Sarah. 2013b. “Recovering and Reanimating ‘Lost’ Traces: The Digital Archiving of the Rehearsal Process in Siobhan Davies RePlay.” Dance Research 31 (2): 144–56.Google Scholar
Whatley, Sarah. 2013c. “Siobhan Davies RePlay: (Re)Visiting the Digital Archive.” International Journal of Performance Arts & Digital Media 9 (1): 8398.Google Scholar
Whatley, Sarah. 2014. “Digital Inscriptions and the Dancing Body: Expanding Territories through and with the Archive.” Choreographic Practices 5 (1): 121–38.Google Scholar