This project involves me archiving a work I created in 2007. It is part of a programme designed by Siobhan Davies Studios that explores archiving, whose work is archived and how we archive dance.
I will be archiving ‘Truth & Transparency’ (2007) is a performance work for three: two performers and one dancer manipulating an image projected onto the performance space using a mirror. The work was inspired by Ralph Ellison’s ‘Invisible Man’ and my reflections on bringing-up my own children at the time. The original piece researched Step and Crumping dance forms and foreshadowed new technology using projection in real-time to manipulate the audience’s perception of dancers and space.
Link to Siobhan Davies Studios further information: https://www.siobhandavies.com/artist-archive/23-24/
Archiving with Bare Feet: archiving the performance work ‘Truth & Transparency’ (2023)
An interactive digital archive using original footage and the creation of a responding new work. The original 2007 work manipulated projected images onto live dancers inspired by Ralph Ellison’s ‘Invisible Man’, the work of Olafur Eliuasson , and Ingo Maurer as well as my experiences as a mother of two Black youth living in the UK. The original piece foreshadowed new technology using projection in real-time. This was to manipulate the audience’s perception of dancers and the space in order to investigate how identity is projected onto Black youth.
With new online technology and my young children now in their late 20s, the ‘archiving’ process takes the form of a new choreographic response to the first work reflecting the precarity of safety for Black identities in the UK 15 years on. The digital space will include both first and second renditions of the piece along with interactive choreographic prompts for visitors to the site. The site will hosted by Siobhan Davis Dance for two years. The project asks: what it mean to archive outside the mainstream canon? How do Western dance archiving traditions render Black dancing bodies visible and un-visible?