Dancing Archives: A Transnational Perspective of Dance Archives from Argentina and Brazil

Abstract

The article deals with the concept of dance archive from a transnational point of view with the intention of provincializing the term and making reflections from the Global South. The starting point is the common thoughts that have crossed our training and career as dance scholars, researching in a specific place –Brazil or Argentina– and studying dance history in connection with local artists whose conditions of access to documents are precarious. Aware that the archive is not homogeneous, we systematize and show how dance archives are adopted in Argentina and Brazil, respectively. The article argues that archives dance, are in motion, are choreographies and can be choreographed (in the organization of the past and through new research). Therefore, the strict separation between a fixed archive and the ephemerality of dance is questioned.