Music, Dance and the Archive: Indigenous Performance and Archival Practice
This edited volume by Amanda Harris, Linda Barwick and Jakelin Troy brings together performing artists, cultural leaders and interdisciplinary scholars to reimagine records of performance cultures through collaborative and creative research. The collection highlights the limits of archival records of music and dance while exploring innovative approaches to re-embodying these materials.
Interdisciplinary Contributions
Nine chapters written by song and dance practitioners, curators, music and dance historians, anthropologists, linguists and musicologists examine performance traditions by Indigenous people from the West, far north and southeast of the Australian continent, and from Aotearoa New Zealand, Taiwan and Turtle Island (North America). The contributors employ artistic methods drawn from Indigenous methodologies, dance studies and song practices.
Decolonizing Archival Practices
The volume interrogates historical practices of access to archives by demonstrating how Indigenous performing artists, community members and academic researchers collaborate to bring life to archived objects. It examines colonial archiving practices alongside creative efforts to redefine the role of archives and bring them into dialogue with contemporary creative work. The book seeks to destabilise the definition of "archives" and imagine different forms in which cultural knowledge can be held for current and future Indigenous stakeholders.
Revitalizing Song and Dance Practices
Through varied contributions, the collection explores modes of re-embodying archival records, renewing song practices, countering colonial narratives and re-presenting performance traditions. It highlights the necessity of relationships, Country and creativity in practising song and dance, and in revitalising practices that have gone out of use.
Contemporary Relevance
As contemporary Australia reckons with its past, this volume challenges readers to critically reflect on how history lives on in the present, with implications for creativity, heritage, the arts, and for prosperous and equitable societies and thriving cultures. This landmark collection in scholarship on Indigenous performing arts and the archive holds relevance for Australia and beyond.
