Modes of Capture Symposium
Modes of Capture Symposium has become an established annual event within our long-standing residency and creative partnership IntraSpaces, at The Irish World Academy, University of Limerick.
Modes of Capture Symposium explores the capturing of the creative and performance process in contemporary dancemaking. Curated by Jenny Roche, Róisín O’Gorman and Liz Roche, the Symposium themes respond to the changing and developing modes of thinking within dance. The symposium first took place in June 2019 and has run every year since then. It has been delivered in partnership with Dublin Dance Festival and Dance Limerick.
Modes of Capture Symposium 2023 involved 2 days of talks, presentations, workshops, and informal performances on the 9th & 10th June 2023 that encouraged a deeper understanding of what we already know above the search for novelty and newness in dance-making processes. In the beautiful surroundings of UL, the symposium offered an opportunity to explore ideas and approaches that help us go deeper into our lived experience, to encourage us to imagine better systems and possibilities for change and exchange within the wider context of the current ecological, political and cultural questions we face.
The Symposium asked:
- What do dance practices and bodily knowledges offer as models or methods with which to address the ethical challenges confronting archival captures and disappearances?
- What modes of attention foster the dance between memory and motion, archive and artform?
- What is at stake when modes of sensation and attention shift?
What matters and for which bodies in the fabulations and materials of archives? - What kinds of techniques and technologies emerge in these dialogues?
- What can be located and/or what can be (re)imagined in our research and practices to provoke new modes of performance and perception?
Contributions were invited from researchers and practitioners who explore the limits of what can be captured as well as the range of modes of captures. These may take the form of paper presentations, workshops, informal performances or online presentations.
See here for more information on Modes of Capture Symposium 2023.
Modes of Capture 2022 explored the capacity for writing to capture embodied experience in dance making.
Seeking to interrogate this potential from a variety of perspectives, the event took place across two live, ‘in person’ strands. Following two research-based workshops at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick, the Modes of Capture Symposium 2022 culminated in two days of workshops and talks by international and local dance artists at Dublin Dance Festival 2022.
Artists included: Choreographer Liz Roche, Dr. Jenny Roche, Dr. Roisin O Gorman, Amala Dianor, Dr. Arudhra Krishnaswmamy, Prof. Jools Gilson, Choreographer Jonathon Burrows and Poet Jessica Traynor.
Modes of Capture 2021 explored the theme of decolonising structures, thinking and embodiment within current modes of dancemaking and documentation. The Symposium invited investigations from an Irish and international perspective, asking how colonial thinking influences the formation of dancers and dance practice. We questioned what counts as archival material and whether bodily expression can be understood as testimony when the ‘bodies of evidence’ are missing.
This theme resonated with current international imperatives to decolonise dance studies and to allow the voicing of multiple narratives and minoritized positions on creative dancemaking processes.
Presenters included: Dr. Prarthana Purkayastha (Keynote), Qudus Onikeku, Gilles Jobin & Victoria Chiu, Fearghus Ó Conchúir, Charles Koroneho, Alys Longley, Lucia Kickham.
Modes of Capture 2020 explored how dance artists exchange knowledge and experiences across extended networks and through multiple generations that span distance and time. It asked how we might reimagine ways of artistic exchange and how we think about legacy and connection in light of current social and environmental realities.
Themes included: Embodying and transmitting movement legacies from dancer to dancer and from generation to generation and reimagining ways of artistic exchange in an uncertain future where international travel may become increasingly restricted due to shifting borders, climate change and other global issues.
Artists Included: Rebecca Hilton (Keynote), Fearghus Ó Conchúir, Sarah Cerneaux, Jodi Melnick, Phillip Connaughton, Siobhan Davies, Paul White, Charles Koroneho, Glenna Batson, Susan Sentler, Jazmin Chiodi & Alexandre Iseli, and Theo Clinkard.
Modes of Capture Symposium 2019 explored the various means of capturing creative process to engage with the layers, threads, fragments and memories that interweave throughout the process of dancemaking. The symposium invited perspectives on how dance artists document process and deal with questions of transfer and legacy. A key aspect of this symposium was what performers in particular could contribute to knowledge about dancemaking, while at the same time, opening up channels for participants to interact outside of the boundaries of either theorist or practitioner according to a variety of logics of practice.
Talk at Dublin Dance Festival included: Dr Jenny Roche, Liz Roche, Dr Róisín O’Gorman, Dr Linda Murray, Dr Finola Cronin and Val Bourne CBE.
Symposium presenters included: Dr Susan Kozel (Keynote), Erica Charalambous, Jean Butler, Sally Doughty, Dr. Jools Gilson, Paula Guzzanti, Dr Rachel Krische, Dr Alys Longley, Dr Lisa McLoughlin, Rachel Sweeney.
