Citing musicality: Performance knowledge in the Gardzienice archive

This article draws on previously published multimedia documents to explore the notion of musicality in the work of Włodzimierz Staniewski and the Gardzienice Centre for Theatre Practices. In addition to offering a close analysis of several documented moments – including performances, work demonstrations, expeditions and gatherings – it tests the ability of multimedia documentation to capture performance knowledge, arguing that the work of Gardzienice is a paradigmatic example of ‘practice as research’. Taking the archive as a crucial dimension of the dissemination of knowledge, the article uses multimedia citation to examine the specific contributions of Gardzienice in the context of musicality as a relation between the theatrical and the musical. The article demonstrates that the stability of the archive allows for a detailed explication of performance knowledge in a way that is not possible from live performance alone.