reperformances

Reperformance is the act of re-staging or re-enacting a performance, such as a theater play, dance piece, or performance artwork, by artists, scholars, or institutions. It sits within performance studies and archival practice and aims to recover, test, or reframe aspects of a past work for contemporary audiences. Reperformances may rely on original scripts, choreography, and design documents, but they often reinterpret or alter elements to reflect current contexts or critical perspectives. Methods include archival research, consultation with creators or rights holders, reconstruction of staging and movement, and the inclusion of new performers or audiences.

Reperformance raises questions about authenticity and authorship: how closely should a past work be reproduced, and who controls its meaning? It also engages ethical considerations such as consent, rights, and sensitivity to material with cultural or personal significance. The practice can serve scholarly aims—analyzing performance conditions and histories—and museological goals, such as preserving intangible heritage. Examples range from remountings of classic plays and reconstructions of historic dances to artist-led projects that foreground contemporary concerns while drawing on the original work. In practice, reperformance intersects archival work, dramaturgy, choreography, and theory, inviting ongoing debate about memory, interpretation, and the ethics of repetition.