VAULT

Diana:

• Who owns Vault?
• Could be helpful for young dance-makers

Darrell: Going to the Wall DVD

Erin: Define difference between digital and analog

Jane:

• Archiving is her job
• Kind of ambivalent; archiving happening all the time now
• Doesn’t ever dig into archives that are there; wants to, but no time; feels like a luxury
• Resources: to pay people to be in piece; to pay people to document it; just buys another hard drive, tons sitting there
• Live and analog experience becoming more important
• Tino Sehgal: highly regulated archives, makes them more “valuable”
• Should I be sharing process? Too much given away before show?

Bebe: The idea of audience then is involved

Jonathan:

• Prejudice against digital; but rely on it for grant-writing, etc.
• Hasn’t investigated possibilities of digital engagement for audiences

Julia:

• Always purging; what is more relevant to now; what do I have time/space to deal with?
• Editing for artistic project or for time/space management
• Baby boomer parents, history of getting rid of something

Margi:

• 24 years worth of stuff; necessity to let it go; how to choose; who it’s important to
• Discoveries of going through that material
• Bebe has said “co-presence”; M says it’s the archive itself, not tangible

Ginger:

• Dispersed collective memory
• “Remembering” a body word; any memory is already different between people; which pieces of memory did people take with them?
• Memory is an act of creation
• Various recording devices: human body with mind in it; digital technologies are cool but human memory is especially

Diana:

• Resource: keep videos as opportunity for reflection; that changed with YouTube: other people capturing their performances
• At 10-year anniversary of company, deciding what media to keep? Way easier these days.

Erin:

• Social media platforms as form of archive, by way of artist or audiences posting
• That peer support has been greater currency than analog archive of press or reviews
• Offers potential for relatability of work, expansion of audience base, artist sees work reflected back, using as tool for working/making

J’sun:

• Recent choreographer talking about Marie Kondo, seeking connection through phone
• What’s the point if not connecting to anyone; thinking of “hunger”
• Looking at Bebe Miller Company’s materials, researching his lineage
• Meat is in the process; would rather see mentor’s rehearsal than performance

Darrell:

• Is a body analog?
• The shelf life of materials; my memory, my body has a shelf life. What materials are escaping?
• What’s important to people around, what are they asking for (e.g., dad’s materials); figuring out what’s important by what’s requested
• “Couldn’t do it with him around”; dad had to go for materials to have life out there
• Jawole [Willa Jo Zollar] has similar recent convening about archiving; how to let materials go

Margi:

• You’re the key translator of those materials; what happens if you’re not there to give them over?

Bebe:

• Archive is different than documentation

Bonnie:

• Fluidity/clarity of private v. public sphere (what do we make available)
• “Epistolic succession”; body to body teaching choreography, very different than doing it from documentation
• How do we prioritize what’s important? It’s deeply personal.
• 50 years of writing journals might not survive her; currently are a resource to her
• To whom are these materials a resource?
• Historically have preserved the dances; now Bebe and others are preserving media as art-making resources themselves

Ginger:

• Long progression from historical presentation (for God) to where we are now

Darrell:

• Ownership of materials (Jawole); can artist still have access to them? Library of Congress v. university. Where do I want the home for these? Who are the gatekeepers?

Ellen:

• Liz Lerman/Dance Exchange: who owns the work?
• Hard to swim past emotional layer; death and mortality

Jonathan:

• Desire for immortality; does digital seduce you into thinking you can last forever?

Ginger:

• If everything was gone (giant digital fail), what would there be left?

Margi:

• Rely on others to remember

Bebe:

• Rachel Boggia: live bodies in room what is important; create virtual community, live people making work in time/space around world
• We are making threads of furthered information

Jenai:

• Use studio as metaphor as archive; steeped in archiving all the time, last thing you wanna do is thinking about documenting/media management
• Accidental archivist; always been part of dance practice, way to catch up to peers b/c started training late
• Tap dancers are actively archiving in a specific way more than other dance forms.
• Think of digital as portal into materials; standing at threshold of studio
• Active, personal, living, breathing, generative
• What is my role as archivist in Chicago dance history? Facilitating documentation, story-telling, remembering

Bebe:

• Importance is making the record
• Digital audience is varied/complex, not a singularity
• Ann Carlson: relearned her solos, as an archive; danced them for Margaret Jenkins, only person in room
• Have control over scale of access
• Humanity of it can’t be forgotten, even on digital side

Margi:

• Richness of Ann Carlson, her doing that, we understand the richness of that; how do we quantify that to a funder?
• We know that smaller audience experiences permeates in way that’s not necessary tangible/fundable
• Their capacity to recognize the value of that exercise (relearning solos, etc.)

Bebe:

• Funder has a job to do that’s not our job; ultimately, I don’t wanna fill in what funder wants

Ginger:

• Politics of identity; about the one
• Smaller class size is more valuable

Diana:

• Connecting, work in progress; adds to what is archived about particular work

Jane:

• What value system are we ascribing to when we talk about archives?
• Western systems
• Camille Brown: what info is transmitted over generations?
• Analog, body to body, over generations, simultaneously as materials are being archived

Diana:

• Is what is out there what the artist would have wanted to be out there? e.g., Katherine Dunham

J'Sun:

• Aunt’s red velvet recipe: won’t give him recipe, why? Will he ever get recipe?
• Grandmother’s biscuits: approached by manufacturer, she said no; what’s precious about archive?

Bebe:

• Recipe measurements aren’t digitizable

Ginger:

• Like motion capture

Ellen:

• Sense of embodiment in how recipe is captured (oil stains, handwriting)
• Throwing away archives feels like throwing away her; mark of the body in an archive

Ginger:

• Reliquary

Bebe:

• PBS documentary of African-American dance; what permission was given, what was captured?
• We’re asking that question now; any archive is subject to… it isn’t controllable

Margi:

• Studied with particular teacher; now can see archived videos

Small groups of 4–5 people; use four questions as jumping-off point:

1. What strategies and experiences can you share related to digital or analog archiving and your current practice?
2. How has (your) dance making been affected (or not) by the virtual/digital availability of your work?
3. What do you assume (in the best sense of the word) about audience and your practice?
4. What are some changes imaginable regarding company/independent artist strategies, audiences, funding and presenting structures?

How would you want this info disseminated? What would be helpful? Sent to whom?

Bonnie:

• Radical archiving; expanding canon of what’s considered archival work
• Power dynamics around how funding is distributed; needs advocacy and reimagining

Ginger:

• Close-in supporters that are influencers in the funding field (NDP, e.g.)
• Share with them what would help educate them about a more democratic process
• Annual meeting via Chicago Dance Forum; ongoing active exchange with artists

Bebe:

• MAP fund; modified how/who they fund in response to cultural shift; nimble
• Artists insisting on what they hold dear, and in that way changing funders’ perspective on what’s important

Ellen:

• Value of getting people in room for substantial amount of time; productive/generative
• CDF artists: we just wanna talk with each other

Jane:

• Themes from small group: real-life v digital; what do we want an 11-year-old to know? Future history in regards to materials. Pedagogy: what do we want another generation to be able to view. As opposed to what we value now.
• Intergenerationalness

Diana:

• How can info be used as a tool to educate those that come after us that want to be dance-makers?

Bebe:

• Center for Creative Research; Eiko, Ralph Lemon, M. Jenkins, etc.; 8 years; power in proximity, without knowing exactly what we’d do
• In the repeating of meeting that there’s implied furthering

Ginger:

• How does Bebe Miller Company share materials with Vault attendees?
• Jumping off point for generative work
• Recollection/reconstruction and generation
• Maybe it’s easier to archive work if it’s not your own

Bebe:

• Do these conversations change what happens when you go back to the studio?

Jane:

• Are there themes that have arisen in the conversations?

Bebe:

• Jacob’s Pillow Vault convening theme: Difference between documentation and archiving
• Chicago Vault convening theme: generational factors; contact with audience
• Any follow-up? Send us email

Small group summaries:

• Erin:
• Lack of hub in Chicago for practice/presentation/conversation outside of learning institutions (like Gibney)
• Archiving as immortality; does that need to be solved? Do we try to change dance’s emphemerality?
• De-growth: compost back into sphere instead of more more more
• Darrell:
• Customization (Bonnie’s word) of types of archival products depending on artist
• What is blue sky vision of Vault? (Jawole talked about that) (Bebe: rub of creative practice between analog and digital; what happens in the room when you’re making, knowing these two things are available? Needs second meeting of each group; and then what and then what…)
• Diana:
• Jonathan: analog allows for risk and discomfort; digital offers information
• Diana: generational piece, how story is told, everyone receives different experience
• Jane: difference between work and document of work; everything has potential to grow into new work
• Jenai: what translation looks like; collecting history, improv
• Bonnie:
• “Integrity” is at heart of the project; beyond their legacy, available resources, etc., all has to come back to integrity of how they wanna work and what DNA they leave behind.
• “The curation of the documentation is the archive”
• Hindsight is leading the viewer to follow where the artist chooses to go (it’s after the fact)