This volume emerges out of a series of established annual symposia hosted by C-DaRE (Centre for Dance Research) at Coventry University, âDigital Echoesâ, which over six years has attracted a wide cross-section of the cultural heritage, artist and scholar community worldwide. The series began with a clear focus on the interrelationship between dance and digital technologies , in particular how digital technologies support different documentation strategies including digital archives . Throughout six editions, the focus has expanded to include a broad cross-section of the creative and cultural industries. This expansion also contributed to placing dance and performance practice in dialogue with forms of intangible heritage such as storytelling and music . Whilst the focus of Digital Echoes contributions was firmly established on the digital, these dialogues opened up questions regarding boundaries and relationships between different forms of arts and culture, which predate the digital. One critical aspect emerging from the Digital Echoes symposia is that there is a need to consolidate the body of knowledge that both relates and critically examines differences between present-bound, traditionally-rooted and future-oriented artistic and cultural practices as a step towards a firmer understanding of the role and the impacts associated with the intervention of digital environments on creative practice and audience engagement with arts and culture.
Intended as a contribution in this direction, this edited volume provides a compendium of innovative cases and practices, as well as critical, historical and theoretical approaches examining the integration of digital environments in the creation , documentation , circulation and reception of arts and culture, with a focus on intangible and performance-based cultural heritage. A thorough engagement with the relationship between performing arts and cultural heritage, which is only sparsely treated in the literature through an interdisciplinary lens, contributes to consolidating a much-needed set of conceptual frameworks for drawing connections between historical, contemporary and future artistic and cultural practices. The volume is not limited to a strictly academic perspective but takes a horizontal approach which brings in the voice of artists and practitioners, as well as creative professionals that blend practice and research. This enables us to offer an overview of innovative creative practice as it is currently being cultivated, accompanied by reflexive, theoretical and critical perspectives necessary to expand the corpus of knowledge around initiatives, achievements and developments many of which are still emerging, singular in their approach and achievements. Whilst emergent, the authors are careful to acknowledge where these activities are rooted in or take influence from texts that have established a lively discourse for describing and analysing digital performance. Several cite key references, including Steve Dixonâs 2007 text Digital Performance: A History of New Media in Theatre , Dance, Performance Art, and Installation, and Philip Auslanderâs much cited theory of âlivenessâ (1999). Other texts that provide a contextualizing framework for this collection include Sita Popatâs Invisible Connections: Dance, Choreography and Internet Communities (2006), her co-authored text with Jonathan Pitches, Performance Perspectives: A Critical Introduction (2011), and the more recent jointly edited volume by Popat and Salazar Sutil, Digital Movement: Essays in Motion Technology and Performance (2015). Another volume that has emerged since Digital Echoes in 2015 and shares some concepts with this collection is Maaike Bleekerâs edited collection that has a primary focus on dance: Transmission in Motion: The Technologizing of Dance (2016). Matthew Causey, our keynote speaker at the Digital Echoes 2015 edition, became an important influence for many when preparing their chapters. Two of his texts are particular reference points: Theatre and Performance in Digital Culture: From Simulation to Embeddedness (2007), and his jointly edited volume with Emma Meehan and Neill OâDwyer, The Performing Subject in the Space of Technology: Through the Virtual Towards the Real (2015).
The connection between intangible and performance-based cultural heritage, which is central to this book, has combined with reflective practice relatively recently, considering as well that notions of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) have made their entry into established cultural heritage vocabularies less than half a century ago. The first systematic definition of ICH was formed in 2003, in the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. The definition, purposefully broad, insists on the dynamic and co-creative nature of ICH as the sum of cultural and spiritual forms that are developed, cultivated, and transmitted intergenerationally in the midst of a community or society, providing the members with a sense of identity, belonging, and historical continuity. A list of ICH domains is provided, which spans forms from oral traditions and performing arts to craftsmanship, music , traditional knowledge and ritual practices. The UNESCO Convention marks the recognition of ICH as a fundamental aspect of humanityâs collective heritage. This also marks a point in time when understandings of heritage started to shift, from an almost exclusive focus on tangible and material aspects of it, to a more inclusive conception that integrates intangible and immaterial aspects.
The chapters in this book engage with varied forms of ICH , from music and storytelling to dance, theatre and martial arts. Despite their labelling as ICH , all these forms also have distinctive characteristics, which compel us to think differently about how we may engage with, preserve and transmit them. For instance, dance fills a unique place in ICH as an ephemeral art, frequently described as an act of disappearance (Phelan 2003), which draws its meaning and communicative power from the relation with an audience in the moment when it is being performed. This ephemeral quality also poses unique issues regarding the preservation and transmission of dance, as the knowledge embedded in its creation and performance is strongly embodied, and difficult to capture within notation and representation systems.
The focus of this book is on the intervention of digital technologies in all aspects related to the recovery, creation, transmission, curation and preservation of ICH . We take digital technology to encompass the tools, devices, and infrastructures that enable the representation of information in the binary system made of 0 and 1 digits. Beyond this functional perspective, we acknowledge as well the role of digital technology as a mediating mechanism that can profoundly intervene in and affect all processes involved in the continuum of cultural heritage creation and transmission. It is not in the scope of this book to provide a systematic overview of these spaces of intervention, but rather to use illustrative cases to point to tendencies and trends that are bound to have profound implications for the future of creative, art...