The Embodied Experience in ‘Carne Digital: Arquivo Eva Schul (Digital Flesh: Eva Schul Archive).

Funder

National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (Brazil) 

Value

£2236.07

PI and Project Team Members

Karen Wood

Monica Dantas from UFRGS, Porto Alegre

Project Partners and Countries

Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul)

Project Overview

The project seeks to explore the embodied experience of creating a digital dance archive and collaborate with the development of digital archives in the performing arts that foster the registration, the documentation, the critical reflection and the dissemination of works and events in performing arts.

Project Impact Statement

The mobility grant will allow Wood and Dantas to share research skills in the fields of embodied experience in dance and digital technology. It will also offer an opportunity to work with students, as well as developing skills and networks for international funding bid writing. Both UK and Brazilian research organisations will benefit from increased access to dance research knowledge and future ex- changes.

Project Objectives

• To work with the dancers to investigate their embodied experience of being recorded and stored in the digital space.
• To develop a digital archive containing a digital choreographic library as a method of recording, preserving and promoting dances, disseminating Eva Schul's artistic and pedagogical work.
• To analyse Eva Schul’s trajectory in order to expand the understanding of the cultural role played by the performing arts in Brazil.
• To provide material for teaching contemporary dance technique developed by Eva Schul.
• To learn digital technologies that allow the organization of digital archives in the performing arts.
• To learn digital technologies that allow recording, visualizing and editing movements in virtual environments, enabling the creation of a digital choreographic library;
• To develop proficiency in the use of the motion capture and treatment systems;
• To problematize the use of technology as a tool for the construction of memories in the performing arts, considering the social and cultural demands of the Brazilian contexts.

Outputs

• Research materials made available on the UFRGS website, Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE) website and on social media. There will be access to selected audio-visual material such as filmed interviews and photographs, reference lists and field note quotes for researchers and practitioners who are seeking more material on somatic practices and politics.
• Research-led workshop with local students, researchers and practitioners. This will be both a method of research exchange but also an opportunity to share findings so far. The workshop will focus on exploring the bodily experience of the digital environment, integrating participants as collaborators into the research process and providing accessible ways of exploring the research questions. It will be bilingually facilitated by Wood and Dantas, to share the work with the wider local community.
• A bilingual provocation article developed from the visit, about the dancing body and digitization. This will be co-authored by Wood and Dantas, and made available in a free, open access manner published on both the CDaRE and UFRGS websites.
• Funding bid development – the findings of the project in Porto Alegre will feed into the development of a funding bid, for example to the Arts and Humanities Research Council UK, on dance and digital archives across cultures, extending the exchange between Wood and Dantas to make it sustainable in the longer term.