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As they are mainly based on bodily experiences and embodied knowledge, dance and movement practices present a great diversity and complexity across genre and context. Thus, developing a conceptual framework for archiving, managing, curating and analysing movement data, in order to develop reusable datasets and algorithms for a variety of purposes, remains a challenge. In this work, based on relevant literature on movement representation and existing systems such as Laban Movement Analysis, as well as working with dance experts through workshops, focus groups, and interviews, we propose a conceptual framework for creating, and analysing dance learning content. The conceptual framework, has been developed within an interdisciplinary project, that brings together technology and human computer interaction researchers, computer science engineers, motion capture experts from industry and academia, as well as dance experts with background on four different dance genres: contemporary, ballet, Greek folk, and flamenco. The framework has been applied: a) as a guidance to systematically create a movement library with multimodal recordings for dance education, including four different dance genres, b) as the basis for developing controlled vocabularies of dance for manual and automated annotation, and c) as the conceptual framework to define the requirements for similarity search and feature extraction.

This article provides an in-depth description of the many layers and processes involved in constructing a digital dance archive; Siobhan Davies RePlay. Three years after the archive went 'live' the article revisits its development and explores the impact of the archival process on the artists and researchers involved. It traces the ways in which a digital archive can be seen as an extension of the artist's work, reflecting back on the artist's creative methods and influencing future projects. By looking out to other digital dance projects the article will assess the ways in which digital archives contribute to a growing number of digital dance resources and build a new environment for the making, teaching, viewing and appreciation of dance. KeywordsSiobhan Davies dance archive digital choreographic object memory Archives have long been a valuable source of information and knowledge. When the archive is a digital archive, and when the subject of the archive is dance, there are immediate challenges in determining 'what' can be archived, how the archive should be structured, and whom the archive is for. As one of the most ephemeral and intangible of the art forms, dance has generated relatively few records over time and those records that do exist frequently lack the necessary metadata to make them easily transferable to the online environment. This is the broad context in which Siobhan Davies RePlay began its development towards the end of 2006. RePlay is a digital archive of the work of British choreographer, Siobhan Davies. As a 'born digital' archive with no pre-existing hard copy version, it is the first of its kind in the United Kingdom and one of only a few similar collections worldwide. Perhaps unusually for what is traditionally thought of as an archive, RePlay features the work of a living choreographer who continues to make work, so the archive not only offers access to Davies' work from the past but is developing and growing in parallel with Davies as she continues to make work into the future. This article will describe the journey of the building of RePlay, the relationships that developed through the construction process and the impact these relationships have had on this and other related archival projects. I will also discuss how RePlay has prompted thought about the different ways in which dance generates and produces knowledge, and how that knowledge might be shared by viewers and archive users. By recalling the important discussions with those teams involved in making and thinking about the development of other digital choreographic objects during a period that was coincidentally rich in artist-led digital dance resource development, the article will also consider the broader impact and effect of RePlay on its users, including dance artists, researchers and audiences.With the opportunity in this article to reflect on RePlay within the context of a rapidly changing environment for the documenting and archiving of dance and performance over the last few years, because of the increasing av...

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