Dr Hélia Marçal's co-edited volume 'Práticas de Arquivo em Artes Performativas' now published

This book provides a panorama of archival practices in various contexts, with several disciplinary inscriptions (performance, dance, theatre, music), and at the intersection of diverse theoretical geographies. Focusing on both the Portuguese and international contexts, and including contributions in Portuguese, English, and Spanish, this edited volume reflects on the archive as a practice of/in performance: it explores what makes it (a)live and embodied, the ways in which it both inscribes and contests history, the intertwining of archive and memory, and how the notion of the archive has been worked through forms of operating the performing arts in the manifold of spaces they inhabit: the private archives and collections, museums, the internet, the streets, the stage, our memories and our imagination.

Excerpt of the book synopsis: 

“The relationship between the archive and the performing arts has been occupying a prominent place in contemporary thought, unfolding into several aspects: the archive as a process, the performativity of the archive, the archive of practices and the archive as a practice. This volume aggregates perspectives on what constitutes the archive in contemporaneity, showing how it is constructed, dissolved and simultaneously materialised in forms of memory and in incorporated experiences. The archive thus presents itself as a category that multiplies in the discourse of collectors, archivists, researchers, programmers, artists and spectators. As a plural universe, present in philosophical and historiographic discourse, it is translated into documents and statements, continuously archived and revived, in a movement in which histories are lost and gained.”

Congratulations again to Hélia!