The dancer as documenter: An emergent dancer-led approach to choreographic documentation

Abstract

Realigning the interrelationship between documentation, choreography and the lived moment of performance, this article asks how choreographic documentation practices can be reimagined to articulate deeper layers of embodied knowledge beyond a focus on movement patterns or gestures. Entrusting the dancer to drive the process, accentuating their expertise in perceiving and analysing bodily sensation, the article proposes a series of experimental documentation methods. These include the use of verbal language, the breaking down of choreographic continuity and linear phrasing, and ‘enactive’ filming, with repetition as an exploratory tool. Developed through practice, these methods consider the use of available technologies (laptops, smartphones, etc.), informed by theories of enactive perception. By relieving the tension between the immediacy of performance and choreography as a framework of previously defined choices and limits, the article focuses on the dancer as the primary asset in the documentation process, advocating their agency in articulating interior knowledge and lived bodily experience in documented forms.