idocde » Editorial
BIG UPDATE! a NEW Symposium and more…
reflections on the 2022 IDOCDE symposium
The April Issue – symposium description is here
The March Issue
The February Issue
The November Issue
making place for making place
Nancy Stark Smith
The May Issue: Onwards with IDOCDE!
IDOCDE Virtual Meetings starting soon!
The December Issue
The September Issue
on symposium scheduling and languaging against the odds
on beaver dams and the 7th IDOCDE symposium
in lieu of transparency, approaching the 2019 IDOCDE symposium
Tracing Forwards –––––– the question of (human) nature
New Year, New Symposium, New Story
Tradition, Evolution and Diversity – Share Your Legacy
updates, updates, updates
... how many hours in a day
The Cassiopeia score and other matters; power, pedagogy, and the imparting of knowledge
revelations, reflections, confessions; post-symposium update
Months Bleed into New Months
Martin's Alphabet
You are here – I am here
Something New
Ashes to Ashes, Water to Words
Le vierge, le vivace et le bel aujourd'hui ... [1]
a fictional season
on beauty: an unexpected debate
What I Did Not Miss This Summer
I Can Not Not Move. Can You?
IN THE SPACE OF STUDY – notes on The Legacy Project and the 2017 IDOCDE Symposium
Scores for Rest
Everlasting Words
what you give will remain yours forever
the limit of the limitless
ATTENDANCE
What can dance bring to culture?
Documentation and Identity – New lives of memories...
Solo thinking does not exist
The Importance of Being [Un]Necessary
Hot Stones Notwithstanding
Documenting what is in a flux
Symposium Preparations Under Way
Moving images are often read as “the truth”...
The Technology Coordinator
Potential for Relationship, Subversion and Emergence
A quantum LEAP to REFLEX
Abundance of Exchange – no me but for you!
Teaching Form[less]?
Questioning it all?
After a few months of ephemerality…
Failing Successfully!
Her sweet boredom…
teaching dance, flying airplanes and surgery procedures
re-creation – by the writing dance teacher
Revisiting Our Reality
The End
Roll the bones!
And now?
Treasure Hunt
News from the Arsenal
Body time & Politics
Morning training opening at K3
Symposium 2013 Vienna
Time is ticking...
"If tomatoes are a fruit, isn't ketchup...
Symposium 2013: Call for proposals
Teaching at ImPulsTanz: Call for applications
idocde meeting Stolzenhagen August 13-17, 2012
More videos please!
Hello… What are you doing here?

Moving images are often read as “the truth”...

Dear Reader,

My name is Andrea Keiz, and I am a member of the Research Group of  REFLEX Europe.

I am working in the field of video documentation of contemporary dance since 2000, producing documentations for archives, books, DVDs, online platforms and working processes. The materials are used for reflection, distribution, advertisement and archiving.

The first way to express myself is movement. To create something that lasts longer than the moment of movement, the use of images and video occur to be a good way. Writing is different to me. Although letters are images that create content - they have to be revised over and over in dialogue with others in order to hit the point I want to make. In the contrary to the range of interpretation of images, we tend to narrow down the possible reading of text to one way.

If I work with video as a documentation tool I am confronted as well with the fact that moving images are often read as “the truth” about something. But considering perspective, circumstances, personal and political interest, it is very soon clear that there is no objective documentation.  The visual representation of a live act has several possible outcomes. 

This guides me through my work in teaching on documentation.

The following thoughts might strike you as a dance might strike you – they might resonate with you – then leave you alone. 

Thoughts that occur when I ask myself:

            In which context do I write this?

            What is my interest in this context?

            Whom am I writing for? 

 

Documentation:

Documentation is a perfect way for me to reflect on the work that I’m doing.

IDOCDE as a platform offers the possibility for these reflections to be shared.

Reflection, mirroring, I look at what I did. Reflection, to make sure that I am conscious about my development and the transmission of my work. Documentation is the perfect way to do so.

A very basic example for this is the exercise of camera choreographie (http://www.idocde.net/idocs/575). You look at a situation, you make a plan according to the circumstances, you follow your plan and you look at the result after. There will always be a moment where you perfectly fulfill your plan and those moments where you “failed” according to your plan. As an exercise you can do this over and over and diminish the gap between your imagination and the image. You will figure out that you sometimes need to take one step aside to find an interesting perspective. 

 

Sharing:

In a time of constant information overload I have to think of those years when I used a handwritten notebook.

Sometimes I go back to those notebooks in order to reuse thoughts and exercises.

It feels like distillation. A lot of written words on the paper condensed in a memory that turns out to have the capacity to become an exercise, that I can use to transmit my ideas.

Since documentation is a common topic in the field, we produce a lot of documents on what we do. Writing, video and photo… In the realm of documentation we might share them already before the process of evaporation took place.

But maybe the material is just meant to feed back to myself?

Maybe it is at a point where I want it to share a specific question within a closed circle.  How to decide what to share and with whom and when? 

 

These are thoughts that I have when I think about IDOCDE and how a broad participation could make sense in a long run. How can we use the platform to support these different layers of documentation and needs for discussion?

This question offers a perfect transition to the theme of the next IDOCDE symposium. The Symposium "The Importance of Being [Un]Necessary - 2016"

The symposium will be the place where we discuss and exchange what is “[un]necessary”. On the question of documentation as well as on the question of the importance of dance as an art form.

And then again using IDOCDE to share the condensed and edited thoughts around “The Importance of Being Un(Necessary)”.

Andrea Keiz

28.02.2016