Documentation as a Performance Material - ‘Real-time Documentation’ in Dance Performance -

Abstract

This study aims to expand the idea of documentation as collecting and preserving dance to encompass documentation as a performance material. The ‘real-time documentation’ in dance performance allows the field of dance to move beyond Phelan’s oppositional understanding as being in a complementary relation. I contextualize this expansion by applying Philip Auslander’s discussions of documentation. I also draw artistic examples particularly in documentation being utilized as a real time technology in dance performance in order to highlight how documentation and live performance in dance go beyond dualistic opposition. Through investigating Trisha Brown, Zoi Dimitriou, and Matthias Sperling’s works, this study offers the choreographic strategy that exposes the repetition process and the act of over-documenting in using ‘real-time documentation’ in dance performances.