Dancing with Heritage: Site-Specific Dance and Performance in Historic Sites and Museums

The article focuses on site-specific dance and performance on historic sites and in museums linked to heritage, as well as on the aspects which such dance and performance work with: memory, commemoration, interpretation, architectural value, etc. The first part of the paper is devoted to the phenomenon of performativity in humanities and to the concept of ‘heritage as performance’ that is shaped by this phenomenon. In the second part of the paper this concept is elaborated on and expanded with the help of artistic performative practices such as a promenade wearing headphones, site-specific dance, and performance art. Finally, based on the example of site-specific performances, the article demonstrates the primary strategies that are applied by the authors and describes the characteristic features of those strategies. The question addressed here is how dance is used to work with heritage and how heritage is used to create dance.