ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses Precarious Movements: Choreography and the Museum (2021–2024), an Australian Research Council funded project that aims to bring artists, researchers and institutions into dialogue about best-practice to support both the choreographer and the museum, and to sustain momentum in theory and practice around dance and the visual arts. Against the backdrop of intermedial experiments in the mid-twentieth century, the twenty-first century has seen dance and choreography appear more frequently in art galleries and museums. However, processes and protocols concerning performance conditions specific to choreography, curatorial and conservation practices and theory have lagged behind. Precarious Movements firstly defines its field of study historically and theoretically. We understand our subject to be the area of contemporary choreography that is engaged in discussions and conditions that correspond to those in the scope of visual art in the contemporary situation. We contextualize this historically through an understanding of the key role dance-based knowledges played in the emergence of performance art, non-object-based or dematerialized art, post-conceptual, post-disciplinary and participatory art. In doing so, we put artists and creative practice firmly at the center of our inquiry through multiple commissions and workshops, engaging their knowledge and experience as primary research and supporting dancers and choreographers as important end-users.
