September 23, 2005

Preserving and Documenting Dance Works

Today, the New York Public Library's Jerome Robbins Dance Division is hosting a one day education program, "The Digital Dance Library: Learning and Planning for the Future". "The aim [of this event] is to hear your views on the Library's plans for the future development of its digital dance collection and site, and to ensure that our work in sustaining America's dance heritage and supporting dance practitioners is of maximum benefit to you and your colleagues."

To learn more about this digital dance initiative, I recommend that you read the Background page for this event. Here's excerpt:

The Dance Division is the world's largest archive devoted to the history and documentation of dance. Each year, the Dance Division is visited by more than 24,000 performing artists, critics, scholars, writers, historians, and many others. Each year, the Division adds to this archive by creating original documentation through the recording of more than 100 works in addition to receiving gifts from dancers, writers and organizations of hundreds more. Significant uses have already been made of this archive, and dance documentation options continue to expand beyond film and video to include new media formats such as high definition and digital moving images.

I'm very curious to learn about the different ways that digital media will be used to preserve dance.

In the week running-up to this event, the organizers have been hosting an on-line discussion called "Dancing in the Digital Age". The primary purpose of these moderated discussions is to address issues revolving around the documenting and preservation of dance works, and creating incentives to inspire artists to preserve their dance pieces.