experimental documentation/choreographic translation

Abstract

The point where a dance work begins and ends is fuzzy and ambiguous, especially when we consider performance as continuing past live interactions between performers and audiences into publicity material, documentation, film and context. Experimental documentation/choreographic translation performs aspects of the choreography corporeal translations, as a series of performance writings and images. A series of ten images is preceded by a critical discussion of the choreographic process underpinning corporeal translations and of movement-initiated writing as a rendering of dance process. Movement-initiated writing is posited as a method for writing about dance experimentally, in a form that emerges in relation to dance-based qualities such as felt affect, tone, rhythm, space and texture. Translation is discussed as the movement of ideas between artistic forms, cultures and/or languages. This article posits that the discipline of translation provides a rich resource in practice-led research for considering both methodological and ethical concerns in moving between creative and critical spaces.