Movement Matters Debate: Archive as Instrument for Innovation?, 8 October 2017

As part of the exhibition Movement Matters, 20 jaar Nederlandse Dansdagen, the Dutch Dance festival initiated a debate on the topic of archive. The purpose of the debate was to encourage reflection and dialogue on the relationship between archive and innovation, and to consider how that relationship might specifically relate to the field of dance. The debate, held on 8 October 2017 at Theater aan het Vrijthof in Maastricht, was organised in a collaboration between the Dutch Dance Festival, Maastricht University Masters’ program Arts and Heritage, and MACCH.

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 globalisation, 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. The Movement Matters Debate included participants representing various academic and artistic backgrounds and was attended by students from various programs in the Netherlands.