Intellect

Authors:  Rita Marcalo 
DOI: 10.1386/jwcp.2.1.105_1

Keywords
choreography, ontology, disappearance, writing, practice-based

Abstract
This article focuses on choreographic documentation and it particularly questions the role of the written text as a document of a dance work. It begins by tracing my research's attempt at ‘doing without’ writing. After discussing the need for documentation in practice-based research, the article exposes ontological assumptions about writing: its ontology of permanence as the ability to remain ‘through’ classical time. It then moves to a discussion of permanence in relation to post-classical time (duration): permanence as memory. The discussion then shifts to my attempt to create a documentation modality which utilized the bodily and image memories of a choreographic work, and in so doing dispensed with writing and utilized choreography itself as its own documentation vehicle. The final section discusses the limitation of this documentation modality and how, in the end, it returned the research to writing.