Dance as Documentary: Conflictual Images in the Choreographic Mirror (On Archive by Arkadi Zaides)

Abstract

In a solo performance entitled Archive (2014), the Israeli choreographer Arkadi Zaides offers a physical and choreographic interpretation of videos collected by the Israeli nongovernmental organization B'Tselem in the context of an operation called “Camera Project.” The footage projected on stage shows only Israelis, but the viewpoint is Palestinian. Starting from this material, Arkadi Zaides performs, by extraction, imitation, and repetition, a (self-)analysis of the contemporary Israeli body, following a procedure reminiscent of Avi Mograbi's for film. What is the specific nature of these images whose very mode of capture emblematizes the conflict situation? What might be the contribution of an approach that puts the dancer's kinesthetic knowledge to work? How far does this offering force us to think about the “documentary” potential of dance performance, which is too often brushed aside or played down?

When Is Contemporary Dance?

“…I would contend, however, that generalizing all dance as contemporary, whether as a period designation or because it is a time-based medium, risks giving the term no real locus of identification, no way to mark the social, cultural, or political significance of a moment in history. Pouillaude (2007) identifies the current dance scene as "contemporary" because of its specific aesthetic commitments to presence and contingency. Burt (2004) likewise characterizes the "contemporary view" in today's concert dance world as particularly preoccupied with "preposterous history", or what Agamben would call "contemporariness"-a reflexive consciousness of the present.…”

“…11. For sources that attempt to define contemporary dance see: Burt (2017), Kolb (2013), Lepecki (2004;, Pontbriand (2014), Pouillaude (2007), Solomon (2013).…”

“… 13. Pouillaude (2016) notes in a later article that the past twenty years of conceptual and self-reflexive work in contemporary dance is giving way to work that documents extrachoreographic material, that is interested in historical and social events and political realities. …”

Dialogues avec les traditions de l’histoire : les régimes mémoriels des chorégraphes burkinabè

“…En articulant la création chorégraphique à des événements ou à des récits historiques, ils travaillent au contraire à ancrer leur pratique chorégraphique dans le monde contemporain. Ce faisant, ils s'inscrivent tout autant au sein des « nouvelles tendances documentaires » qui animent le monde globalisé de la création chorégraphique41 que dans la généalogie plus longue de « l'art engagé » qui structure une partie des dynamiques artistiques burkinabè depuis les années 1980.Dialogues avec les traditions de l'histoire : les régimes mémoriels des choré...…”