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Cataloging

Introductions  Earlier this summer, Rebecca invited me to join a Zoom meeting with Gesel and our team’s new archivist, Ellen Kamoe. She explained that they would be looking at the No Boundaries prototype, and specifically the catalog—trying to figure out if there were gaps that needed to be filled before publication. I hadn’t worked with…

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Structure of the archive

Before I started to work with Gesel on creating the No Boundaries Archive, I’d made websites using WordPress and Squarespace and Wix, but I’d never had the experience of building a digital archive. It’s taken some time to orient myself with respect to the digital archive’s more complex structure. This blog post, in which I’ll…

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Platform vs. Toolkit

When our project was funded by the NEH and we began the designing and building process in earnest, Seth Kaufman, Whirl-i-Gig’s founder and lead developer asked, “Are you looking to build a platform or a toolkit?”   As Seth explained, a platform and toolkit would be quite different. A platform would be a digital resource hosted…

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Dance Becomes Data, or Who Can Help Us Translate? 

Since beginning our collaboration, Gesel and I have shared a number of goals/hopes/expectations for the No Boundaries online prototype archive. Central among these is our desire to create something that connects to the body and liveness and performance. Yet, on its journey to online delivery, even the most stirring and expansive recorded performance becomes a…

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Preparations/Context

Building an online prototype takes considerable resources and we would like to be transparent about the conditions that have allowed us to advance our project thus far. First, we have been able to obtain grant funding from the NEH, which not only helps pay for the work, but also validates the project in a way…

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Project’s Background and Goals

Gesel Mason and I first met via Skype in 2018 at the suggestion of one of our Dancing Digital advisors, Sali Ann Kriegsman, dance expert, leader, scholar, and supporter extraordinaire. It was immediately clear to both Gesel and I that our separate projects, No Boundaries and Dancing Digital, shared the overall goal of furthering dance…

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Meta-documentation

This progress blog is a documentation of a documentation of a documentation, a circumstance that poses certain challenges in terms of clear and organized communication.   Layer 1 – Gesel Mason did not just dance and choreograph in her No Boundaries project. She also extensively documented it; choreographed with that documentation (the live performances featured interstitial…

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