Thank you, Libby. And thank you, Rebecca, for inviting me\nto the Symposium and for spearheading this effort. Though I haven\u2019t been active\nin this aspect of the field for some time, I thought I could shed some light on\nprevious efforts to broaden access to moving images of dance, efforts I have\nbeen involved with over many years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is by no means a comprehensive survey of projects\nundertaken nation-wide. There are many more individuals and organizations\nwhose critical work has informed and led us to this moment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Almost fifty years ago, in 1970, my husband, Alan M. Kriegsman, and I co-authored an article titled \u201cThe Unstudied Art\u201d in Cultural Affairs Journal. We asked: \u201cHow is it that educated men and women can be conversant with the plastic arts, music, drama, and literature, yet grossly ignorant of dance?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We saw an urgent need for revolutionary advances in notation and\nrecording techniques and noted that an American Film Institute was just founded\nin response to \u201ca growing sense of need for a national organization devoted to\nthe art of film.\u201d (I was working at AFI at the time). And we said that\n\u201cthe benefits that could accrue from a comparable center for the preservation,\nstudy, and dissemination of dance should be obvious.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the early 1980\u2019s, as dance consultant for the Smithsonian, I\ncurated a series of public programs that included Merce Cunningham speaking\nabout and showing his innovative videodance investigations, Ernie Smith,\nprivate collector of rare tap and Lindy footage, showing film clips of Bill\nRobinson at the National Portrait Gallery, and live performances of veteran tap\nartists along with the film \u201cNo Maps on My Taps.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the 1980s and 1990s at burgeoning tap festivals, artists\nand a few interested parties (myself included) would stay up all night in a\nhotel room binging on grainy videos of tap artists. When technology\ndemocratized and could be held in our hands, tap artists were among the first\nto glom on, to trade and share clips of legendary and contemporary dancers \u2014it\nwas how they learned the history of their art, alongside living tap elders\ntelling their stories\u2013and it spurred a new generation\u2019s creative work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the National Endowment for the Arts, the Dance Program\u2019s\ndance\/film\/video category supported a wide range of creative and documentation\nprojects, and collaboratively with the Media Arts program, funded TV broadcast\nseries such as \u201cAlive from Off-Center\u201d and \u201cDance in America.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1990, \u201cImages of American Dance: Documenting and\nPreserving a Cultural Heritage\u201d was published. This report, based on a\nstudy co-sponsored by the NEA\u2019s Dance Program and the Andrew E. Mellon\nFoundation, surveyed for the first time the existing system of dance\ndocumentation and preservation nation-wide, how transactions were conducted\nwithin the system, and to what extent the needs of the dance community were\nbeing met. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our focus was on users, and the need to equip artistic and\narchival communities in their efforts to build, strengthen and extend dance\ndocumentation and preservation efforts at the local, regional and national\nlevels in order to assure that the legacy of dance would endure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Among the study\u2019s conclusions most relevant to our symposium is\nthis one:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c\u2018Access\u2019\u201d has become everyone\u2019s byword\u2014for the artists who\ncreate the work and records of it, for the repositories that house those\nrecords, and for scholars and others who want to use those materials. \n\u2026.Video cameras and computers have raised everyone\u2019s expectations of what\nshould be available on demand\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It identified among barriers to easy access, \u201cthe incomplete\nrecords of what collections exist and what is in them, the conflict between\nsome needs of archive users and the limitations on physical property rights and\nintellectual rights, and the tension between the need for \u2018hands-on\u201d use and\nlong-term preservation concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And it concluded: \u201cOutreach, education and broad public access\nto the field\u2019s rich and varied traditions are essential if dance is to overcome\nits persistent marginalization among the framework of America\u2019s artistic and\nintellectual discoveries.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The study spurred the creation in 1992 of the Dance Heritage\nCoalition which, in its first decade, made major strides cataloging and\ncoordinating efforts among its principal member archives and collections and\naccomplished much much more in the years that followed. Another result\nwas the Pew Charitable Trust\u2019s funding of the National Initiative to Preserve\nAmerica\u2019s Dance (NIPAD) 1993-2000, and in 1998-2000, the UCLA National\nDance\/Media Leadership Project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I left the Arts Endowment in 1995 for Jacob\u2019s Pillow,\nNorton Owen and I made the Pillow\u2019s archives and the potential of its holdings\na priority. It was through the Pillow\u2019s unique setting and mission that I could\nclearly see the rich connections to be made between practice, performance,\nmaking work, preservation, and access to dance\u2019s live and recorded history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2001, Dr. Alberta Arthurs former Director for Arts and\nHumanities at Rockefeller Foundation, met with me to discuss the challenge of\nproviding access to moving images of dance. By then collections had\nbecome better known and accessible for study and new streaming technologies\nshowed great potential. But access to these materials was limited to the\nphysical premises of the holders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr. Arthurs secured a one-year grant from the Mellon Foundation\nto explore issues involved in building a \u201cDigital Dance Library\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The proposal to the Mellon Foundation grew out of the need,\nacknowledged by the dance field, for an accessible collection of full-length\nrecordings of historically and aesthetically important works of American dance. \nAlthough such images were essential for scholarship and teaching, they were not\navailable in a way that encouraged discovery and learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Digital Dance Library Planning project went \u201clive\u201d from\nMarch 2002-June 2003. It was designed to find out whether it could be\npossible, using digital technology, to stream moving images of dance in a\ncurated, organized, protected, technically accessible system, to the\neducational institutions, teachers, students and practitioners who need them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not only, we proposed, might a Digital Dance Library advance\ndance literacy but it could greatly enrich scholarship and learning in the\nhumanities and other disciplines where dance has largely been absent, and it\ncould fuel and inspire artistic development and creativity.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The project was, I believe, the first, to bring artistic,\ntechnological, intellectual property legal and business sectors together to\nstudy needs, capacities and barriers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The challenge of envisioning a streamed dance library was\nundertaken by a team of researchers working from the Graduate Center of the\nCity University of New York. I was one of four principal investigators,\neach working in an area of expertise relevant to the study. Dr. Arthurs led the\neffort. The investigators (each of us directing a specialized sub-team or\ngroup) were: Stephen Brier, co-director of the New Media Lab at the CUNY\nGraduate Center, on technology; Andrew Taylor, director of the Bolz Center at\nUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison on the business model; Jane Ginsburg, faculty\ndirector of Columbia University\u2019s Lernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts\non intellectual property issues, and yours truly on artistic content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The process was enriched and also complicated by the use of\nspecialist teams who knew little about each others\u2019 specializations, and were\nlocated at distances from each other. (This was before Skype). Much of what was\nbeing studied had not been studied in this inclusive way before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The team asked these questions, among others:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Three techniques were particularly important: interviewing,\nmodeling and convening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We each conducted interviews, whether surveys (with dance\nscholars, with potential users) or interviews with individual experts\n(particularly in the law and in technology). Because information and data were\nlocated in so many closely held sub-fields, getting information directly and\nindividually turned out to be quite important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Models were produced. Examples included: a model database\nof essential dance materials, a template of legal concerns, descriptions and\nanalyses of information technology business models, the design and\ndemonstration of the actual digital delivery system. Whether in written\nform, in charts or on spreadsheets, or were physically constructed \u2013 models\nproved to be useful tools for communication from one area of expertise to\nanother, and they tended to make synergies, connections, and gaps easier to\nsee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In November 2002, the team brought together forty leading\nprofessionals in the field at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City for a\ndaylong presentation and exchange of findings and ideas. A demonstration\nshowed the potential and possible features of such a library.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (After watching our demo, which used as examples moving images\nfrom Jacob\u2019s Pillow\u2019s archives, an artist exclaimed how moving it was to see\nher forbears, and said she\u2019d want her work to be included if the project was a\n\u201cgo\u201d.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wrapping up our study, we prepared full reports on our process\nand work and issues to be further explored. The Mellon Foundation\nencouraged an application for a pilot phase in which we would build out and\ntest a full working model. Application was made. Unfortunately, Mellon did not support the next phase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today we see tremendous advances in technologies, robotics,\nstreaming, and the threshold possibilities of AI. Legal guidelines\nregarding fair use have been thoughtfully laid out for testing more broadly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These major challenges remained: where to house, develop\nand maintain a sustainable, protected system; intellectual property rights,\naccess for and to whom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The technology is here; privacy rights, ownership, fair use and\ncompensation are being fiercely debated in other sectors; dancers are creating\nwork using new technologies. But the lingering deficit of readily\naccessible full-length recordings of dance remains a major challenge both for\nthe dance community and for the public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have a couple of broad questions I hope we can explore here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before I yield to my colleagues, I want to give a shout out to\nthe many individuals, organizations and efforts that I haven\u2019t named here,\nwhose dedicated work has led us to this moment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"