This project investigates the possibilities of choreography as an intermedial practice to relate to today's societal urgencies, particularly relating to the migration and environmental crisis. For about a century, documentary theatre has reconstructed factual information in order to analyze a specific event or phenomenon. Visual artists and filmmakers have joined this trend and demonstrate through their work how factual information can be altered and questioned. Even though the field of contemporary dance is driven by critical experimentations, until recently practitioners seemed less prone to include extra-aesthetic materials in their work. When considered as an intermedial practice, however, choreography is able to weave together factual information and embodied practices in order to question social and political realities as well as the idea of the documentary and authentic subject.
Taking shape through different media and performance contexts, this PhD will develop new artistic methodologies that confront reality through the imaginative reuse of facts. The project will focus specifically on the intersection between choreographic and documentary practices and the possibilities of this hybrid cross-over to articulate new modes of engagement and intervention in social and political topics. The research questions what role dance can play in the critical reimagination of today’s social and political realities. By combining extensive archival search with other investigative methods, the project will lead to a genuinely intermedial form of documentary choreography.