Conferences
November
5-9, 2008 -
American Society for Theatre Research and Theatre Library Association Annual
Conference 2008, Boston, Massachusetts
ASTR-TLA Annual Conference/TLA Call
for Papers
American Society for Theatre Research
November 5-9, 2008 – Boston, Massachusetts
Unsettling Theatre: migration, map,
memory
Theatre Library Association Plenary
Call for Papers
MAPPING THE BODY: METHODOLOGIES FOR
RECONSTRUCTING LOST AND DISAPPEARING DANCE
America, founder of modern dance, is beginning to
lose its senior generation of choreographers and practitioners. While a number
of leading companies have built impressive archives and now videotape
performances in order to preserve them, dances are still passed along as they
have been for thousands of years: generation to generation, body to body, mouth
to mouth.
Labanotation was developed as a
standardized system to “map” physical movements and the path of the body in
space. Videotape, a vulnerable format, has successfully captured dance
performances for over three decades – in a two-dimensional medium. Print
documents are still critical: reviews, photographs, choreographer's notes or
oral histories. Others insist that the most effective way is to have the
original choreographer – or a trusted company member – set the dance on a new
company.
Clearly, a successful reconstruction must
be a composite of all these necessary elements. Has the development of
sophisticated digital technologies provided new procedures – and perhaps
pitfalls – for the documentation of live motion? How do research libraries and
archives support this process – and how might they frustrate it? We're
interested in a fresh assessment of contemporary best practices and challenges
facing this tenuous field of dance reconstruction.
Further, we welcome testimony of
international efforts to document and preserve the movement heritage of
vulnerable and vanishing cultures: First Peoples, Cambodian traditional dance
decimated by the Khmer Rouge, societies threatened by genocide or ethnic
cleansing.
Please submit one-page Proposal by March
2, 2008 to:
Susan Brady, Chair
TLA Plenary Committee
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Yale University
P.O. Box 208240
New Haven, Connecticut 06520-8240
203/432-9038
203/432-9033 (FAX)
susan.brady@yale.edu
Jill Lane,
Chair
ASTR Program Committee
astr2008@gmail.com
Meetings
Friday, May 23, 2008 - TLA Executive Board Meeting, Lehman College/CUNY, 250 Bedford Park Boulevard West, Bronx, New York, 11:00 AM - 5:00 PM
