Knowing: Dance’s trade literature

Abstract This article explores the possibility that dance is a field of expert knowledge that can be studied from the perspective of documents created by dancers and choreographers whose anticipated viewers/readers are mainly other practitioners. These documents include written texts and annotated video recordings created with the aim of sharing processes, techniques and ideas. These documents seek, in a variety of ways, to partially transform experiential knowledge from the tacit/ implicit to the explicit. As such, they suggest a form of trade literature that circulates dance knowledge within its professional network, but with the potential to generate productive exchanges with others outside of this network. By drawing on a number of examples of this trade literature and discussing their methods of circulating dance knowledge, this article makes a link to the theme of this special issue which is dance as a vehicle to discuss and debate ownership and cultural property.