Performers on the edge [video]

Abstract

This documentary is one of the outcomes of a two-year research project into the precarious work situation of dancers and musicians in the UK. A major focus for us has been the extent to which the present copyright regime adequately addresses the production of experiential works in which performance plays a major role – music and dance being the cases in point. We have drawn on performances observed and recorded during our study as well as on interviews with artists and academics that participated in our investigation. Because this project was part of the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council’s ‘Beyond Text’ Programme, we always wanted to produce an audiovisual record of our research as well as producing the conventional forms of academic textual output but we had never specified the form. It only dawned on us gradually that a short documentary would be the ideal way to do this