ABSTRACT
What do we exactly mean when we speak about media in the performing and other arts? And what notions of transfer are at play in this book? Starting with the question of how to write and pass on the history of supposedly ephemeral art forms, dance and theatre scholar Susanne Foellmer’s kick-off chapter, “Dance, performance, media, transfer,” explores the fundamentally disruptive medial nature of media that surrounds and traverses performing arts. First pointing out the volatile contour of media transfers as they appear in the realm of dance and theatre, Foellmer then argues that ostensible persistent media such as photography or film undergo similar dynamics. Hence, her chapter – and in the end, this anthology as a whole – shows that the very notion of media itself is becoming increasingly flexible, not least through the challenges the performing arts provoke within the discourse on re-performance, legacy, and modes of historiography. Finally, her line of reasoning proposes a mobile concept of media that unsettles the dualities of media versus message and ephemerality versus permanence.
