Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T15:34:07.380Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

(Re)Searching in the (You)Tube: Digital Archives and Dance Practices

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 August 2016

Abstract

It is a commonly held assumption that new technologies have changed human society, culture, and communication dramatically. New phenomena appear, and the new reality is a challenge on many levels. The mass expansion of the Internet, since the early 1990s, has brought new circumstances at the economic, social, and cultural levels, as well as new forms of behavior and expression. In recent years, the basic practice of instructors, dancers, and dance enthusiasts is searching and downloading videos on traditional Greek dancing. In many cases, the videos are considered “research” products capable of supporting the teaching of dance in traditional dance groups. What inevitably emerges is a mode of YouTube as a new digital dance archive. In this peculiar condition, the production, distribution, and “assessment” of the content are in the hands of the user community, who, as Derrida notes, are possessed by one “irrepressible desire to return to the origin”. In Foucault's terms, the archive is a space of enunciation. Repositioned as something that defies exhaustive description, for Foucault, the archive becomes engaged in the production and authorization of discourse itself. This perspective raises questions about the issues of standards, evaluation, and quality of the “material”. But, the most important question is, what is the concept and the content of the terms “research” and “teaching?”

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Christos Papakostas 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Auge, Mark. 1995. Non-places. London-New York: Verso.Google Scholar
Benjamin, Walter. 2007. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” In Illuminations: Essays and Reflections, edited by Arendt, Hannah, 217–52. New York: Schocken.Google Scholar
Blank, Trevor. 2009. Folklore and the Internet: Vernacular Expression in a Digital World. Logan, UT: Utah University Press.Google Scholar
Bowker, Geoffrey C. 2005. Memory Practices in the Sciences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Burgess, Jean & Green, Joshua. 2009. YouTube. Online Video and Participatory Culture. Malden, MA: Polity.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques. 1998. Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1972. The Archaeology of Knowledge; and, The Discourse on Language. New York: Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1986. “Of Other Spaces”. Diacritics 16 (1): 2227.Google Scholar
Gehl, Robert W. 2009. “YouTube as Archive: Who Will Curate this Digital Wunderkammer?International Journal of Cultural Studies 12(1): 4360.Google Scholar
Harvie, David. 1996. “Review of Non-places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity,” Capital & Class 60: 2325.Google Scholar
Iversen, Gunnar. 2009. “An Ocean of Sound and Image: YouTube in the Context of Supermodernity”. In The YouTube Reader edited by Snickars, Pelle and Vonderau, Patrick, 347357. Stockholm: National Library of Sweden.Google Scholar
Kessler, Frank and Schδfer, Mirko Tobias. 2009.” Navigating YouTube: Constituting a hybrid information management system”. In The YouTube Reader edited by Snickars, Pelle and Vonderau, , 275291. Stockholm: National Library of Sweden.Google Scholar
Loutzaki, Irene. 2000. Horeftikes axies: sinehies ke asinehies, statherotita ke allagi[Dancing Values: Continuities and Discontinuities, Stability and Change]. In Elliniki Mousiki: archaeotita, Vizantio, Neoteri hroni [Greek Music. Antiquity, Byzantium, Modern Times], 51–88. Larisa: Folklore and Historic Museum of Larisa.Google Scholar
Pietrobruno, Sheenagh 2013. “YouTube and the Social Archiving of Intangible Heritage.” New Media & Society, 15(8): 12591276. Accessed Feb. 20, 2015. doi:10.1177/1461444812469598.Google Scholar
Poulianos, Aris 1993. Sarakatsani: o archaeoteros laos tis Evropis[Sarakatsani: the Most Ancient People in Europe. Athens: Vivliothiki Anhtropologikis Eterias Ellados Google Scholar
Prelinger, Rick. 2009. “The Appearance of Archives. In The YouTube Reader edited by Snickars, Pelle and Vonderau, , 268274. Stockholm: National Library of Sweden.Google Scholar
Siegel, Marcia 1968. At the Vanishing Point. New York: Saturday review press Google Scholar
Malaka, Skabanis,. 2013. 2013 FDF Oakland Xrisi Aeti Final round. Posted by “Skabanis Malaka”, March 1, 2013. Accessed October 13, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MirOLZhE5c.Google Scholar
Aygh, Xrysh. 2013. Σταυρωτός σαρακατσάνικος χορός. Posted by “Xrysh Aygh”, March 4, 2013. Accessed October 13, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeCorqdum7A&feature=player_detailpage.Google Scholar