Beginnings

In the description of this blog I wrote that it intends "to document the development of An Arcade Project". Being limited to 500 characters in the description, I would like to expand upon that. In addition to being a space for documenting the project, this blog is also intended to be a space for reflection on the processes involved in creating the project, and on its wider themes. I will be sharing the research that I am doing and reflecting upon it as I go, using this space as both a record of the project and as a space to grapple with the ideas and issues that come up.

I come to this project with an interest in site-specific work as a crossroads of my two areas of focus: archaeology and dance. Three main themes in my explorations of site-specific dance are:

changes in urban space over time
the relationship between material things and human memory
the movement of people through spaces

These ideas are informed by my backgrounds in academic archaeology and the embodied practice of training in, choreographing and performing modern dance. I am interested in using dance performance to (re)present urban spaces (specifically unused, abandoned, or ‘forgotten’ spaces) in unexpected ways. In doing so, my hope is to encourage and facilitate different ways of understanding the pasts and presents of the sites and to raise questions about the changes of the materiality and meanings of sites over time.