The Archive and the Repertoire (Taylor, D. , 2003)

Ch. 1 Archive and Repertoire

They both:

• reflect social behaviour and culturesà record art events
• allow scholars to trace traditions and influences.
• are ways for transmission to future generations.

Archive: (documents, map, video etc.)

• Unlimited by place, distance or time. à durable and accessible
• Unchangeable since it is all recorded in various means.
• Methods for protecting “Archive” improve according to technology, e.g. drawing, words, photos, video, internet, you tube.
• cannot record ‘real’ performance, not complete

Repertoire

• P. 4 For Turner, performances revealed culture’s deepest, truest, and most individual character. (Since it is a life performance, it involves performers and audiences. Taylor called it “being there”)
• Nonreproducible knowledge à valuable
• P.20 “Certainly it is true that individual instances of performances disappear from the repertoire. This happens to a lesser degree in the archive.”
• Methods for protecting “Repertoire” do not change, till now, there is no ideal ways for doing so (intangible heritage)
  

{Being a MA in Performance Practice

• Should put more focus on Repertoire, to produce more work as we are professional and we are the one to perform and allow more people to see. They more people can have the memory of the repertoire.
• We are responsible to transmits knowledge and to maintain the culture.
• But as there are some limitations for transmitting Repertoire, and Archive and Repertoire work as tandem. We should combine materials from the repertoire and the archive.
• Try our best to document our performance completely through various means.}

Taylor, Diana. The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas (A John Hope Franklin Center Book). London: Duke University Press, 2003.