Towards documented choreography

This project investigates the possibilities of choreography as an intermedial practice to relate to today's societal urgencies. For about a century, documentary theatre has reconstructed factual information to analyze a specific event or phenomenon. Visual artists and filmmakers have joined this trend and demonstrated through their work how factual information can be altered and questioned. Even though the field of contemporary dance is driven by critical experimentations, until recently practitioners seemed less prone to include extra-aesthetic materials in their work. However, when viewed as an intermedial practice, choreography is able to weave together factual information and embodied practices in order to question social and political realities as well as the idea of the documentary and the authentic subject.

Taking shape through different media and performance contexts, this PhD will develop artistic methodologies that confront reality through the imaginative reuse of facts. It will focus specifically on the intersection between choreographic and documentary practices and the possibilities of this hybrid cross-over to articulate new modes of socio-political engagement and intervention. The research questions what role dance can play in the critical reimagination of today’s reality. By combining extensive archival search with other investigative methods, the project will lead to a genuinely intermedial form of documentary choreography.