Methodologies on Archiving, Recalling and Foretelling with Oral History in Dance and Performance

Abstract

This article explores how oral history can function as a performative and epistemological tool to engage with the embodied knowledge of dancer-choreographers from Southeast Europe. Drawing on 50 interviews and archival material from Tanzquartier Wien, it examines how personal memories, bodily practices, and translocal artistic experiences challenge dominant Western narratives in contemporary dance historiography. The study introduces the concept of body archaeologies to trace and activate fluid, multidirectional forms of dance knowledge, situated between archive and body, memory and movement. Through artistic-research methods such as transcripts as scores and (p)re-enactments, a framework emerges for revisiting and reshaping European dance histories – one that positions oral history not as a supplementary tool, but as a transformative, relational practice capable of destabilising linear historiography and institutional canons.