Representing Digital Collections

This chapter discusses approaches to researching live performance, applied to the case study of Circus Oz. It outlines how the Circus Oz Living Archive, as an online digital archive, facilitates different types of performance research. As Peggy Phelan explains, while the complexity of the process of archiving in order to document live arts cannot be underestimated, serious analysis of live performances requires that photographic and audiovisual recording processes function as their principal surrogate. Histories of traditional and contemporary circus inclusive of acts, artists, circus organisations, circus families, travel, major artistic precedents, innovations and accidents. Archival primary sources such as programmes, newspapers, posters and other records have been the main sources for these histories, even though they are secondary, indirect records of the performance. The relationship between professional performance and community-based projects might be implicit, but the former can inspire non-professional participants.