Unsure about the power, importance, and relevance of dance archives? These impact stories, shared by members of the dance community from around the country, speak to how funding for dance archives allows artists, and entire communities, to preserve their creative legacies, ensure their cultures are not erased, and create thriving, engaging, impactful programming in today’s world.
Want to contribute your impact story? Contact Hallie Chametzky, Archiving Specialist.
Lingyu Wang, Dance/USA Archiving and Preservation Fellow & Doctoral Student at UNC School of Information and Library Science (SILS), speaks about the importance of the Charya Burt Cambodian Dance Digital Library – a resource that preserves and shares the crucial and at-risk legacy of Charya Burt and the entire Cambodian dance community who were deeply impacted by the Khmer Rouge:
The Charya Burt Cambodian Dance Digital Library has been supported by the Alliance for California Traditional Arts and the Dance/USA 2022 Archiving and Preservation Fellowship Program.
Quentin Sledge shares how the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company receiving a 2022 Dance/USA Fellowship not only supported and deepened their legacy, but echoed out into “The Body Remembers,” a Black arts archive, oral history project, digital repository, publication, film, and exhibit project.
The Dayton Contemporary Dance Company Archive Project was supported by the Dance/USA 2022 Archiving and Preservation Fellowhip Program.
Kathy Hassinger, Director of Dance Currents Inc., reflects on the foundational importance of dance archives for dance companies’ diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts; grant seeking and branding; and sourcing, citing, and utilizing historic records.