"So ... Will You Be Looking at Dance?" Data-led Dance History and the Edges of Movement Computing

Dance historical analysis demands an understanding of "movement data" that includes not just data seen to represent moving bodies in terms of dancing bodies, but also representing movement itself as a way of thinking and knowing, of archiving and transmission. In this paper, we draw on experiences from running Dunham's Data: Katherine Dunham and Digital Methods for Dance History Inquiry to argue that dance history can participate in initiatives to build more expansive understandings of measurement, analysis, and representation in movement computing, in particular by addressing kinds of movement that, while not "dancing" per se, are the enabling conditions for dance. We begin with contexts for a data-led dance history, and then elaborate the methods in terms of building, analyzing, and visualizing datasets that focus on transnational, intercorporeal, and intergenerational transmission of dance-based knowledge practices. We collect key findings regarding the capacity of such methodologies to expand the scope of historical movement inquiry, and in turn, to rethink the complexity of embodiment in a broader range of digital analytical contexts. Finally, the conclusion touches on further research, including the sensory potential of visualizing historical dance data in and as movement.