1.2 Understanding a Performing Art as Living Knowledge

A song, dance, theatre tradition, ritual performance, or oral narrative does not exist only at the moment it is presented to an audience. It carries histories, memories, skills, aesthetic principles, social relationships and ways of understanding the world. It is learned through observation, participation, repetition and sustained relationships among teachers, elders, performers, families and communities. It is expressed through the bodies and voices of artists, through instruments and objects, and within places that possess particular cultural meanings. Documenting a performing art must therefore begin by recognising it as much more than a performance that can be captured by a camera.

The UNESCO Convention places performing arts within the broader domain of intangible cultural heritage. It defines intangible cultural heritage as practices, representations, expressions, knowledge and skills, together with the associated instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces, that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognise as part of their cultural heritage.

Living heritage is transmitted across generations, but it is not static. Communities continually recreate it in relation to their histories, environments, interactions and changing social circumstances. A tradition may retain a recognisable identity while its performers, settings, materials, purposes or styles change. Different lineages and communities may also maintain different versions of what outsiders describe as a single art form. Documentation must therefore attend to both continuity and change. Its purpose is not to isolate and preserve one supposedly original or permanently authentic version of a living art.

A recorded performance is always situated. It occurs at a particular time and place, involves particular performers and participants, and responds to a specific occasion. Another performance of the same art may differ in sequence, duration, interpretation, audience participation or use of materials. A recording captures one expression of the art; it does not contain the whole tradition.

To understand this larger system of knowledge, the Manual approaches a performing art through five interconnected pathways: Art Form, Artist, Performance, Instrument and Space. These pathways direct attention beyond the visible event towards the relationships that allow the art to exist and continue.