When we think of archiving dance, we begin with the general understanding of archiving a record. This record can be video recordings, photographs, posters, and other documentation of the performance. In the performing arts, which are about the live act of an artist, archiving could be an important way to address the otherwise ephemeral nature of performance. But this attempt to preserve is also where tension simmers between dance and archives.

If the dancer’s job is to bring alive the artwork through the presence of her embodied being, then is it possible for the archive to capture the presence of the dancer even in her absence? What is the nature of experiencing the live performance of a dancer vis-à-vis watching a video recording later and pretending her liveness? These questions lead us to the complex relationship that dance and archives share with time. For archives, events in the past are important objects to be recorded for historical purposes; memory can be fleeting and erroneous, and not entirely dependable.

The relationship between dance and time is crucial, and has been explored in different ways by Sundar and Joshua in this magazine. Sundar argues that dance’s relation to time and memory is central to our engagement with dance. Drawing on the sphota theory of meaning in Indian philosophy, Sundar argues that meaning emerges when memory is able to bring all the movements together as one whole. He further claims that these movements also get etched onto our bodies as we are moved by the art. The artwork leaves its traces in the dancer’s body, which has rehearsed the dance umpteen times, but also in the bodies of the audience, separate from their memory. 

When we think of archiving dance, however, we focus on documenting the visual experience of the performance as a historical object to be referenced in the future. Rarely do we think of the traces dance has left in the bodies of the choreographer, dancer, and audience.

Joshua highlights different aspects of memory and time that a choreographer/dancer engages with when creating work. He argues that the dancer needs to spend time and thought on developing her body of work. He hints that by continually engaging with the traces of motion in her own body and that of the audience, she would engage in deeper, necessary inquiry.

From a phenomenological perspective, it is these traces in bodies, rather than in memory, that are fundamental to an aesthetic experience. As the aesthetic experience is about both visual memory and embodied affect, the archive should also aim to engage with both components to do justice to its enterprise. However, the metaphysical assumption of archiving objectifies the performance as a historical event and limits it to a discursive frame. This objectification of a past event does not take into account the importance of the presence of the live dancer that gets archived in the bodies that encounter the dance.

The question that arises here is how do we, as archivists, engage with the traces of performance in bodies. Is archiving these traces beyond the scope of what archives can and should do, or does the limitation arise from a problematic conception of the past and memory in archiving? If archiving is sensitised towards the traces in bodies, will that also involve a rethinking of its current modes of recording, documenting, and storing? Taking these questions on archiving dance seriously would also raise universal questions about the method and discipline of archiving any past event. But the central question is of how we engage with the presence of an event that happened in the past, especially when that event is live dance, which inherently relies on the moving body to move bodies.