Tanzspuren

Dance is a fleeting art form - so documenting it poses a number of difficulties. In Switzerland in particular, the sources are patchy and the history of dance is correspondingly full of gaps. In line with more recent approaches to archival practice, SAPA also sees its task in the active creation of archival material and therefore launched an oral history project in 2012: Between 2012 and 2016, the project team conducted interviews with ten dance professionals based in Switzerland.

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These already elderly choreographers, dancers and teachers had experienced the historically significant dance period of the 1960s to 1980s and had a significant influence on the Swiss dance scene themselves: Monique Bosshard (*1941), Jean Deroc (1925-2015), Marianne Forster (1943-2014), Peter Heubi (*1943), Ulla Kasics (1926-2023), Noemi Lapzeson (1940-2018), Fritz Lüdin (*1941), Fumi Matsuda (*1943), Annemarie Parekh (*1941), Evelyn Rigotti (*1938). They talk about their networks, training and performance opportunities as well as their living conditions as dance professionals.

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The portraits thus illustrate and bring to life the wealth of different careers and biographies in dance and make connections visible through the often unexpected points of contact. The video recordings of the interviews also create a basis for scientific analysis.

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Based on the interviews from the pilot project, the Swiss Dance Archive has woven the ten life stories of the dance professionals into a touching one-hour film portrait. Following the great success of the premiere at the 2015 Winterthur Dance Festival, SAPA's first video production has already been shown at many other events. SAPA continues to offer commentated screenings of the film project Tanzspuren , which won an award from the Federal Office of Culture in 2012.