Archives of theatre, dance, and performance are places where artistic practice can be critically examined and its contemporary historical significance questioned. In addition, the arts themselves repeatedly provide productive impulses for working with archives, with regard to forms of presentation, access, and usage options, through strategies of artistic research, reconstruction, re-enactment, etc. These developments are already being investigated by several research projects in theatre and dance studies that not only work with archives, but also contribute to their reconstruction and preservation. The structural problems facing existing archive institutions and collections, however, generally affect the safeguarding of the knowledge resources of theatre and dance studies.
In 2016, the Archive Working Group was founded at the 13th Congress of the Society for Theatre Studies (Gesellschaft für Theaterwissenschaft [gtw]) in Frankfurt am Main and Gießen. It serves the exchange and joint development of research approaches as well as the promotion of young researchers. In addition, it is intended to develop into a forum for the joint representation of the interests of research and memory institutions in the field of theatre, dance, and performance.