ABSTRACT
In this chapter, Isa Wortelkamp addresses the historiographical implications of the temporal, spatial as well as media-technical conditions of early dance photography that shapes our image of dance in publications for dance science, catalogues, magazines, and internet portals. In the gaze of numerous reproductions, not only photography as a “material artefact” but also numerous photographs that evade a general visibility due to their nature or importance remain unseen. Venturing into archives thus becomes work on visibility; Wortelkamp presents this using the example of research into the photographs of L’Après-midi d’un Faune by Adolphe de Meyer in the Musée d’Orsay and in the Bibliothèque-musée de l’Opera in Paris. With the pictures of Vaslav Nijinsky’s choreography from 1912, an object has been selected that has written dance history like no other and will be analyzed in its various forms of appearance and contexts. Wortelkamp traces the path back from current reproductions of the photographs to their place of storage as well as to those ‘blind spots’ that determine – as well as irritate and inspire – the gaze on the image in research and in the material. Finally, her contribution aims to discuss photography as a designed artefact with aesthetic characteristics rather than as an object that provides referential evidence.
