Bodily Archiving in 69 Positions

Recently, an interest in archives and archiving has been noticeable amongst artists as well as scholars. This paper analyses Mette Ingvartsen’s 69 Positions (2014), a dance work in which the audience participates in a guided tour through Ingvartsen’s own “archive”. The aim is to look at how archival traces and archival practices “perform” in the work, with a specific focus on bodily archiving. As a theoretical framework, I draw mainly on André Lepecki’s (2016) conceptualization of “the body as archive”, whereby reenacting becomes a mode of inventive archiving that actualizes not-yet utilized potential in a work. In this analysis, I propose that Ingvartsen’s body and the bodies of the audience create a collective body-archive, which collectively actualizes (previously virtual) intimacy. In addition, I argue that blurring the distinctions between body and archive and between reenactment and archiving are ways of insisting that dance does not disappear but remains, counter to “archival logic” (Schneider 2011, 99), by being stored in bodies and transmitted between bodies and by repeatedly reappearing–always more or less altered–in or as performance.