MDPE.18:1 - Problem

Music and Dance leave selective traces. A recording can preserve sound while losing fingering, actuation, ensemble cues, room interaction, or the Method that generated it. Video can preserve visible movement while hiding pressure, weight transfer, lead-and-response, muscular effort, attention, sensation, or corrections. Scores, choreography descriptions, prompts, code, instruments, costumes, datasets, and event programmes preserve other selections.

Different carriers therefore support different claims. A performer may retain capability without being able to describe the Method. An archive may preserve records after known holders lose representative capability. A school may preserve a name while changing its Methods. A revival may use old records while creating a new Method variant. A new body or instrument can preserve one function while branching another relation.

Lineage is rarely one tree. Musical material can come from one line, bodily or instrumental technique from another, event conventions from a third, and the name from a later instituting group. Horizontal borrowing, mixture, convergence, geography, ecology, and source bias can produce relations that a single genealogy hides.

Even with these gaps, a festival can publish a qualified attribution note, a teacher can choose a reconstruction trial, and a restorer can identify the next capability test.