Professorial reflection: Creative experiments with the capture (and release) of performance through research and scholarship

Researchers of any form of embodied, creative performance including dance, movement, theatre, music or even the healing arts face the challenge of bridging the inherent gap between the performances themselves and the commentary (theories and analyses) we generate about them. This article is a conversation between the authors, discussing the ways they have grappled with the relationship between description and performance across their research, scholarship and practice in both the healing and performing arts. The discussion includes an introduction to a qualitative research method called Recursive Frame Analysis (RFA), originally developed by Bradford Keeney as a way of mapping the movement of change-oriented conversation. In addition to the application of RFA to research in dance, the authors discuss their experiences conducting ethnographic research on the Kalahari Ju/’hoan Bushman (San) healing dance. The Bushmen have their own unique way of handling the relationship between embodied experience and explanatory commentary, which is presented herein through their story of First and Second Creation. The latter offers an ancient and astute contextual framework for holding the relationship between language and non-language mediated experience that dancers and scholars of dance may find intriguing. This conversation as a whole is intended to open up further thinking and dialogue about the relationship between performance and scholarship, as well as inspire dancers and performers of all kinds to develop creative approaches to scholarly enquiry that affirm rather than detract from the complexity and richness of performance itself.