VAULT

Bebe:

• Already feel the performance of the conversation; we’re really talking with each other about our field
• Reminder to drop the filter if we can
• Background: convo with Lane; DanceFort; sharing about archiving process, archiving work over time; fast-forward to election, got curious about what/how are we doing with the new lens; work isn’t collected/dispersed in same way it used to—rub of two axes, vertical (former storage) and horizontal (current way of dispersal);
• Horizontal dispersal: e.g., Snapchat, new relationship to time and presence, and the tell—all of it goes into the making that changes it, it’s catalytic

Pat: immediacy and documentation way of sharing is everything

DH: we think of media being inherently documentary and performance is inherently ephemeral

BB: new ways of media might be more in alignment with live performance

TL: interns now printing out things that were only online (chapbook, articles, etc.)

• People watching FB live feeds while they’re happening, and also afterwards

AG: “documentation” is no longer happening just by you and controlled by you, others are documenting it

• For her, she wants to know what the audience sees
• Hashtag has been a way to record an artist or brand

RFK: hashtag have always existed, it’s just more/different access to it

Bebe: we’re not older or younger artists, we’re “current” artists

• What are the tools available and how are we using them

AH: the scale of time, archiving beyond people that are living now, who had first touched those experiences

• What is the thing you’re interested in preserving forward (not tapes, notes, etc.). What are the parts that are enough to share?
• Does the dissemination require a person to be there? Example of talk at Smith with movement and talking and etc.—pods of archiving

TL: as a dance history teacher, I want recordings of the stuff and reasons why it came to be

RFK: what’s the value of going back; why archive, what’s the purpose of archiving? What kind of value do we place on that? How does that start to separate people? How well can we reimagine the experience? How is that used as currency?

AG: who gets to choose who’s/what’s archived?

• Another obsession with accumulation of things?
• Other side: cultures that get erased

AH: looking at what we have brought forward in the last century

• Things that we’ve determined are important, but they’re just moments—videos of dances that happened to be pulled forward
• Some moments don’t mean anything without connection to experience
• Whole universe that hasn’t been picked up and moved forward

RFK: what is archive?

• Description of archive is similar to description of making live performance: how to capture/encapsulate use the past four years of work into an hour

BB: synecdoche; things that connect you to deeper experience; part of something that refers to the whole of something

Pat: triptych of old pieces at OtB

Bebe: archive depends on who is archiving, as opposed to recipient

• That’s why an artist-driven archive is important

Ann Carlson: relearning her work as a way of archiving them

Dayna: beyond just digitizing 33 Fainting Spells but how to really archive it

• Sounds more fun to get back into studio with people who you made piece with and see what you remember, without video to refer to
• Less about verifying what it was when it happened

Bebe: reads her essay from Canada

AG: not just archiving what we’re doing, but the reverse

• Archiving the world, not just the work

TL: yes, artist-driven archive, but people on the outside might know more of what to include

• Stories really capture what happened in Russia for her, not recordings

IHJ:

• Jennifer Monson remembering a piece in a way that didn’t happen (her washing John Berndt’s back, or vice-versa)
• The Washcloth Gap

RFK: empathy

• Liz Oakley’s (sp?) documentary

AG: “translation”

BB: what’s different about archive and translation?

DH: timing of OTB.TV recording; piece was edited/revised after recording

RFK: archive can be complete opposite of what is done on stage

AG: commercialization of SnapChat

• Younger generation going back to more analog

TL:

• Distribution and context
• Documentary film: there’s a co-author; we know it’s not subjective

BREAK

Bebe: archive and process—is this really an issue?

• Are we looking at how we make? Or that we make? Or something else?

Pat: communicating process is as important than the actual thing that’s seen

Bebe: is it artists’ or institutions’ responsibility to archive? What gets archived, and for whom?

Did we grow into this archiving of process? 30 years ago we only documented performance even though all that process was there. We have learned to love it and want to share that. When we stop wanting to do that, share that ephemeral aspect of what we love about process? What else is there? Our attention to process is a kind of thing.

AH: difference between traditional archiving and archival projects

• Often talk about archive in relationship to one person; but it’s a super-collaborative activity
• Kind of goes in opposite direction than what we’re all working towards

Bebe: maybe at Vault we’re gathering other definitions of what archiving is

• Implicit hierarchy in ownership of materials

RFK: has now heard two stories of how circumstances have led to things not able to learn in archives

Bebe: maybe Vault offers a variety of framing devices

• Maybe has nothing to do with institution; tools that artists can use

Pat: “Library of Water”

• In dance, we always acquiesce, we never demand, but I want my work documented in this particular way

RFK: it’s “OTB’s archive,” but not the artists—re: how language changes it

• Be clear in language about what it really is
• Graphic of cube, and every time it flips, you hear/see from the dramaturg, dancer, etc.

AH: Wooster Group’s “dailies”

• Capturing the jokes, other fleeting moments

Dayna: showed glyphs

LH: conversations keeps veering mostly to how/what to archive of product and process

TL: unsaid binary between institution and artist; how is binary helping us?

• “curator” means “to care for”
• Cunningham/Cage already archiving from very beginning of their collaboration

AG: Sara Shelton Mann never been asked to be archived

• Who decides who gets archived, and why
• Part of important family trees

Bebe: showed Dance Fort

AH: As you’re trying to “fix” something, time is moving on

AH: it took her making her own durational performance before she really experienced durational performance

RFK: would other/newer ways to archive, change the way work was made?

Bebe: every moment is framed, how does that affect moment?

AH: have gotten used to documenting and how that changes moment; we record ourselves a lot

RFK: need an outside person to archive even beyond the videographers who are always there, since they’ve become part of the process, too

• What’s the continuation of this conversation?

Pat: let’s get other kinds of people in there?

BB: Claudia LaRocco, interested in documentation of thing, process

TL: NY Library of Performing Arts, maybe they’re already doing something like this?

• Jackie Davis

Bebe: Dance Heritage Coalition, publications, archives

RFK: hasn’t gone to Statue of Library, because he’s know it’s always gonna be there—same with the performing arts library

AG: everyone went to library before the internet

• Has affected how we accessed info

BB: when Bebe went to look at work at library, was it an accurate representation of the work?

(Bebe says yes)

IHJ: but it’s a portion of the work

• Maryanna Charlton (sp?)

Next question: about how it’s showing up in the work