Image: Digital Theatre
Can something as ephemeral as performance really ever be 'captured' or it really just a case of trying to nail jelly to the wall? Having been personally involved (often unsuccessfully) in trying to convince performers, directors, musicians and unions of the importance of preserving their archival performance footage I know by heart all the excuses for not doing so.
'It was only a dress rehearsal not a real performance'
'It was only a single camera shoot',
'It doesn't capture the spirit of the performance',
'You'll never get such and such to sign a release form'
While I sympathise with these concerns I'm glad to see that there are three exciting digital projects out there at the moment trying to resolve some of these issues.
- The first is the remarkable Digital Theatre featuring performances the Royal Court Theatre,Young Vic and Almeida Theatre among others. If you haven't already read it this article in The Age recently shows just how far we have come in being able to document live perfomance in a real and meaningful way.
- Another interesting site using digital technology to document/discuss theatre in a different way is Theatre VOICE . The site was set up in 2003 in association with the Theatre Museum at the V&A and features 100s of audio recordings about theatre in the UK through the eyes of critics and theatre practitioners.
- Closer to home, the Performing Arts Collection is involved in a three year ARC Linkage project that aims to 'create and analyse an experimental prototype for an online participatory ‘living archive’, built upon the Circus Oz collection of performance and rehearsal video documentation, to drive innovations in repertoire development, performance research and audience interaction'.
