Towards Documentary Choreography: Intermedial Approaches when Working with Extra-aesthetic Materials

by Arkadi Zaides, 12/25

In this artistic doctoral research, I explore how choreography might respond to today’s societal urgencies and topical issues. I develop a documentary approach to dance and embodied practices, where, unlike in theatre, film, or the visual arts, the use of historical facts and documentary sources is only now beginning to emerge. More specifically, I examine how, through various formats, documents can be reimagined choreographically to reveal divergent - and at times conflicting - ways of engaging with society and the arts, particularly in times of crisis.

The research unfolds through three major projects: Necropolis, Necropolis-United, and The Cloud, each exemplifying distinct strategies of societal engagement and intermedial experimentation. Necropolis confronts the deadly consequences of migration through choreographic and cartographic protocols that trace the burial locations of people who have died on migration routes, while cooperating with communities and institutions to bring dignity to these deceased individuals. This work extends into Necropolis-United: Integrated Data-Platform of Dead and Missing Migrants in Europe (FWO I005522N, UGent, 2022–2026), an interdisciplinary project supported by the Research Foundation - Flanders. This project brings together artists, scholars, technologists, and activists in the collaborative construction of commemorative information systems honoring dead migrant people and questioning the dissemination of sensitive data in an ethical and sustainable way. The Cloud expands the issue of migration to environmental terrains, investigating the pervasive algorithmic “cloud” of artificial intelligence within the context of ecological crisis. It focuses specifically on the Chernobyl catastrophe in an endeavor to explore the entanglement of human and non-human agency as well as material and immaterial infrastructures.

Towards Documentary Choreography - Encounter #2

by Arkadi Zaides, three-day symposium in Brussels, held at Beursschouwburg, Les Grands Carmes, and KVS BOL, 04/25

“Towards Documentary Choreography - Encounter #2” is the second in a series of symposiums linked to the doctoral research of choreographer Arkadi Zaides. This event brings together scholars, activists, artists, dance and performance practitioners to explore the multifaceted meanings of “documentary choreography” and to assess its potential engagement with sociopolitical issues as well as medium-specific concerns.

This edition places the act of attending to bodies at its core, emphasizing the body as a critical site of knowledge, memory, and agency. As such, the symposium invites participants to consider how physical gestures, movements, and embodied acts act as repositories of lived experience, capable of reflecting on and responding to sociopolitical realities. Attending to bodies means not only observing their actions but also recognizing the ways they embody histories of struggle, resilience, and transformation.

Towards Documentary Choreography - Encounter #1

by Arkadi Zaides, three-day symposium in Brussels, held at Beursschouwburg, 12/23

For this symposium, which follows from his practice-based PhD research, Arkadi Zaides invited various practitioners and scholars to reflect collectively on the notion of “documentary choreography”. By looking at concrete case studies and by proposing various theoretical lenses, the participants explored the strategies used by artists when combining embodied and documentary practices. Through different formats, they considered the potentiality of such blending not only to challenge the boundaries of contemporary dance and documentary theater, but also to engage critically with social and political issues.