Remembering and Forgetting: Dance as an inter-generational process of recovery and transformation

Abstract

In this performative presentation, I share my recent research into performance remains and the archiving of dance through inter-generational and inter-corporeal workshopping of dances that have been lost or forgotten. This presentation involves demonstration and articulation of the ways that dances are passed on, changed and transformed as well as abandoned and sometimes recovered through non- tangible forms of transmission. Although the research relates to a European Tanz Theatre legacy, following workshops with dancers of Pacific Island descent in the New Zealand Dance Company, it was apparent that it resonated with their own experiences of cultural loss and the transmission of knowledge f..