The Sentient Archive: Bodies, Performance, and Memory

All modes of human inquiry, from the artistic to the scientific, are archived as body knowledge. The Sentient Archive gathers together the work of scholars and practitioners in dance, performance, science, and the visual arts. These twenty-eight rich and challenging essays cross boundaries within and between disciplines, mediating the theoretical and the experiential to illustrate how the body serves as a repository for knowledge. In drawing connections between body and archive, the essayists consider how and why the moving body generates and stores information for recall, retrieval, or reenactment. The writers address issues of history, memory, and agency, but the knowing body, performed or reenacted, remains a focal point. Contributors include Nancy Goldner, Alain Platel, Catherine Stevens, Meg Stuart, Andre Lepecki, Ralph Lemon, and other notable scholars and artists.