Proposition 
Is archive essential for innovation? 

Exhibition Context
As a practice fundamentally viewed as transient, dance has historically held a contested relationship with archive. The art form has stereotypically resisted permanence; existing instead in a perpetual state of instability. Yet, in a form so deeply rooted in accumulative knowledge, there is more than a suggestion of its interdependence.

While acknowledging that complexities do exist in the relationship between dance and archive, reevaluating their reciprocity might propose new possibilities for the art form’s advancement – especially to a generation of young artists who have been tasked with its innovation.  

As the dance world rapidly transforms through technology and globalization, it seems necessary (though perhaps paradoxical) to readdress the cogency of archive; to argue its relationship with innovation, and to consider how that relationship might be understood – both within the field and outside – as an instrument essential to dance’s sustainability.

Moderator
Dr. Christoph Rausch; assistant professor in the Humanities and Social Sciences at University College Maastricht (UCM) and founding member of the Maastricht Centre for Arts and Culture, Conservation and Heritage (MACCH).