Transmission: From archive to production re–imagining laban–contemporizing the past, envisioning the future

Abstract

This chapter focuses primarily on the transmission process of Dancing Drumstick (1913) from archive to production, and will discuss key issues in relation to the staging process including: identifying what the ‘material remains’ of Laban works are and how these elements are translated for production; what the process is for interpreting, transferring, transmission of live archive/documents into practice; how specifically interpretation is used; what archeochoreological methods are used to ‘re-imagine’ the work; and the notion of the ‘body as archive’ and embodied knowing. I have devised a method that uses live arts practice to re-imagine the Laban works–bridging archival gaps to create a new ‘living archive’. This transmission process from archive to production uses performance as a tool for translation and transformation and the dancer’s body as archive and ‘place’ for creative exchange.