Minding the Gap: The Choreographer as Hyper-Historian in Oral History-Based Performance

Abstract

Argentinian dancer and choreographer Paula Rosolen, who holds a Masters degree in Applied Theater Studies at Justus Liebig University, Giessen in Germany, represents a generation of choreographers working in the sub-genre of choreographic documentary theatre. In 2010, Rosolen trained under my direction as a Fulbright Fellow in Frankfurt where I taught theory, method, and practice of oral history-based documentary performance to a variety of dance, and theatre and opera students at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst. Rosolen’s MA thesis performance work, titled Die Farce de Suche: Ein Solo von und über Renate Schottelius (A Farcical Search: A Solo for and from Renate Schottelius) uses oral history interviews and other archival documentary sources for a choreographic inquiry on the influence of German expressionist dancer and choreographer, Renate Schottelius, in Buenos Aires, Argentina.