Stored in boxes, gathered in folders and albums, printed or digitised in arrangements, sequences and series – we rarely encounter photographic documents alone. This is especially true for dance photographs, which are predestined by the motif of movement to appear in constellations, to relate to each other, to begin a dance next to and with each other.

The conference was dedicated to these plural constellations of dance photography with regard to interrelationships of image and movement, which have shaped our idea of modern dance to a great extent. Since the beginning of the 20th century, dance photography has found a rapidly increasing distribution through various publication media: in books and picture folders, on postcards and posters, in collection albums and scrapbooks, in daily newspapers and magazines. Such manifestations, each of which contains specific images of movement, will be examined from the perspective of dance and photography theory and discussed in the context of a historiographical examination of analogue and digital image archives of dance.
Selected exhibits from the holdings of Tanzarchiv Leipzig were included in the conference that have been part of the special collections of the Leipzig University Library Albertina since 2012.

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For some years now, Digital Humanities has been a collective term for initiatives and offers, which serve to establish digital working methods and networks in research and teaching in the humanities – also at the University of Leipzig. The spectrum ranges from linking various databases (with the help of improved web pages and search functions) and the integration of digital tools in research projects and courses to new degree courses that also teach students skills in dealing with data. In the humanities, the focus so far has been on the digital evaluation of texts of all kinds. In addition, the digital infrastructure of collections and archives has improved, which are of particular importance for subjects in art and music studies. These trends are also increasingly important in theatre studies. However, it is one of the special features of theatre studies that the subject of theatre (including dance and performance) is primarily about scenic events and cultural practices that are only partially and indirectly manifested in written works (and texts, documents, etc related to them). So what might a future “digital theatre studies” look like?

The workshop, organised on the initiative of students at the Institute of Theatre Studies, is intended to explore the opportunities and challenges of the digital world in an exchange of information technology and subject-specific questions (also as a prelude to further events of this kind). To this end, experts and students of Digital Humanities have presented some current projects and theses in dialogue with lecturers at the Institute.

Program

The conference addressed the complex structure of different practices, interests and ideologies that characterised the dance landscape of the GDR between elite promotion, folk art and mass culture from a double perspective. The perspectives discussed at the conference were questions, on one hand, concerning a specific body politics of dance in the GDR. How was the new socialist order and community embodied? What role did state guidelines play for the training institutes and for performance practice? What was addressed on the other hand was the historically differentiated field of tension between dance forms, institutions and actors, on which a policy of disciplining and staging bodies could unfold.How can archive materials and memories of contemporary witnesses be productively linked? What is the relationship between individual experiences and the body-political tendencies that developed in different phases of GDR history?From 13 to 15 November, international experts discussed these questions at the public conference of the research project Körperpolitik in der DDR: Tanz-Institutionen zwischen Eliteförderung, Volkskunst und Massenkultur (English: Body politics in the GDR: Dance institutions between elite promotion, Folk Art and mass culture) – funded by the Saxon State Ministry for Science, Culture and Tourism – in the rooms of the Institute of Theatre Studies. Contemporary witnesses were invited to report on their experiences with dance institutions and developments in the GDR and to participate in the discussion.

The symposium held at HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts in Dresden was the starting point for the research project Körperpolitik: Disziplinierung und Inszenierung im Kontext von Gymnastik, Ausdruckstanz und Massenchoreographie (English:Body Politics: Disciplining and staging in the context of Gymnastics, Expressive Dance and Mass Choreography) (2012). It also represented the beginning of an artistic project by the performance group LIGNA on Rudolf von Laban’s movement choirs. What was addressed in this event were the impulses for dance history and modern dance, that emanated from Hellerau and whether these were actually accompanied by a liberation of the body.

In what way was the body politics of the time, between disciplining and staging, connected to a notion of the emancipation of the political body? What kind of community did the movement choirs constitute? What role did amateur dance play in this? And: How can we work with the idea of movement choruses in the context of contemporary performance today, given the history of mass choreographies in the 20th century?

The conference focused on the dialogue between archiving work and artistic practice. Together with international experts, perspectives of archival practice in the field of dance and performance were discussed, especially with regard to current developments in the fields of digitalisation and re-enactment/reconstruction. With lectures, presentations, discussion rounds and performances, the focus was on the transfer between archival work, academic research and artistic practice. Among others, works by Fabian Barba, Artistwin, Ivana Müller and LIGNA were shown, as well as a new version of Thomas Lehmen’s SCHREIBSTÜCK developed by Britta Wirthmüller with students of theatre studies in Leipzig. The conference was a cooperation of the Tanzarchiv Leipzig with the Verein Deutscher Tanzarchive (English: Association of German Dance Archives), the Institute of Theatre Studies at the University of Leipzig, the Festspielhaus Hellerau and the LOFFT.
In addition, the series Tanz – Archiv – Labor took place during the semester from April 2009 to July 2010, focusing on the artistic practice of dance and performance as well as the work of the archive and its theoretical reflection. The history and present of dance, physical culture and performance were each questioned by the invited artists and academics in terms of their contemporary historical dimension.