Archives Funding Talking Points

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Looking for help making the case to donors and funders that archives are worth investing in? Try these talking points:

  • Archiving has multiple benefits, not only preserving the legacy of artists organizations, but helping active organizations and communities to thrive. Archives are not just dusty boxes: they are integral to dance-making, outreach, sustainability, and education.
  • Archiving cannot wait until artists pass away or organizations close their doors. The dance field had relied heavily on video for documentation, leading to an urgent crisis as these materials are endangered by obsolescence and deterioration. When records are lost, history is erased.
  • Archiving is an issue of cultural equity. Archives determine whose stories are heard, whose legacies are uplifted, and how the history of the art form is understood. 
  • On a practical level, archives allow organizations to more nimbly and effectively use legacy materials to support current activities, such as remounting past works, marketing and audience engagement, funding proposals, and education. A well-organized, preserved, and accessible archive saves time that can be lost hunting for materials and provides quicker and fuller access to information.
  • Archives ground organizations in their original values and mission. By giving people access to the past (via online archives, physical and digital exhibitions, and public programs), they enable artists, support staff, and community members to feel more deeply connected to an organization’s history, values, and artistic legacy. They also allow organizations to evaluate when they need to pivot, make strategic shifts, redefine or recommit to mission, vision, and values.
  • The COVID-19 pandemic forced companies and artists to pivot to engaging audiences digitally and raised awareness of the value of archives, with many companies sharing archival recordings, photos, and other materials via websites or social media. However, many artists and companies found their ability to leverage their archives hampered by lack of organization and readily available digitized materials, and by copyright/intellectual property obstacles. Support for archiving will help organizations and artists operate more nimbly and effectively in a digital environment.
  • Most grants that are dedicated specifically to archiving or preservation are designed for formal archival repositories. The requirements and expectations of these grant programs make it extremely difficult for performing arts organizations and artists to access this funding. We advocate for dedicated funding streams for archiving and preservation that are open to arts and cultural organizations. 
  • Moreover, arts organizations may not wish to partner with a repository immediately, or ever, for a variety of reasons, including need for immediate access to materials, desire to keep archives within the community where they were created, and lack of trust in institutions that have no connection to historically excluded communities. Active organizations and independent artists need to be able to access funding for archiving without partnering with an institutional repository.
  • (NEA): When organizations and artists are forced to apply to the same pool of funding for archiving or preservation as for mounting works, it is extremely difficult for them to prioritize archiving. A dedicated funding stream for preservation, which can be accessed in addition to funding for art-making or general operations during the same grant cycle, would allow artists to address time-sensitive archival needs without compromising other core mission activities.
  • The New England Foundation for the Arts “Moving Dance Forward” report of 2016 finds that 81.5% of the dance field is working on an independent artist/project basis. Independent artists and smaller organizations therefore make up the vast majority of the dance ecosystem, and have the same needs to preserve their legacy as larger organizations: support for digitizing at-risk media, establishing safe digital and physical storage for collections, creating inventories and descriptive metadata. To date, smaller organizations and independent artists have been chronically under-resourced in this area and have struggled to find sources of funding.
  • At Dance/USA, we see the scale of the need for assistance firsthand in the response to our annual call for Letters of Interest from organizations that wish to host Archiving Fellows; LOIs regularly outnumber opportunities tenfold.
  • For independent artists or smaller organizations with little infrastructure, archiving projects can be successfully accomplished through partnerships with archival consultants and interns, and archiving not only ensures that artistic legacies are not lost, but strengthens the capacity of smaller organizations and independent artists to engage audiences and community stakeholders.
  • The fact that larger, more resourced organizations are also more likely to receive support for their archives extends the inequity in the dance field, influencing which artists, organizations, and communities are able to share their stories and see their work preserved. The legacies of some marginalized communities and dance forms are overlooked or misunderstood because the documentation of their work is not visible. Concerns about the “capacity” of grassroots organizations to implement “best practices” reflects lingering white supremacy culture and becomes a way of perpetuating historic inequities.
  • Many smaller organizations and independent artists have relied upon press coverage of their work for accurate information about their presentation history. Criticism has also provided a record for the dance community at large about trends and movements within the field. With arts journalism vastly diminished in scale and resources in recent years (there is now only one remaining full-time dance critic in the United States), artists must be able to ensure they have their own documentation to avoid gaps in the historic record.
  • Funding for archiving is almost always project-based. While this support can be useful for achieving specific goals like digitizing AV materials or establishing an inventory, there is a need for ongoing operational support for archiving. As active organizations create new records, they need to continue organizing and preserving these records; additionally, in order to maintain access to older archives and ensure that they are being properly stewarded, there is a need for dedicated ongoing support for staff time and digital storage. Without this funding, archiving projects are often left uncompleted, and improvements to the organization and security of materials may not be sustained.
  • Operational support needs include: fees for cloud storage, hard drives, and software; staff time to catalog and properly store newly created records.
  • Dance educators have long raised concerns about the dire need for better access to full-length recordings of dance works for teaching purposes. The dearth of available works impedes educators’ ability to teach the full range of diverse dance forms, artists, and organizations, thus perpetuating inequities in recognition for marginalized dance forms and artists. Students from diverse backgrounds are often unable to see themselves and their communities represented in their educational materials. Greater support for archiving would enable more artists and dance companies to make their works accessible for study, allowing for more inclusive curricula.
  • Archives do not only serve the artists or organizations that create them. They are also a vital tool for community engagement, and they often preserve community stories, traditions, cultural heritage, and voices. Archives, and the archiving process, can be a powerful way to bring communities together through public programming, exhibitions, and inviting community members to contribute to building or organizing an archive.
  • Archiving has the power to shift the narrative about who has shaped the dance field and whose legacies are valued and uplifted. By preserving and giving access to voices and stories that have long been hidden and obscured by systemic biases, artist- and community-driven archives can fight erasure and create a more equitable, representative record of the dance community’s true diversity.  
  • The “Advancing Equity Through the Arts and Humanities Act” (H.R. 7627) introduced by Congresswoman Barbara Lee acknowledges the role that the arts and humanities play in dismantling systemic racism. Enabling young people and underserved communities to learn about diverse artistic lineages and traditions, and to understand where dance forms and artists come from, amplifies the power of the arts to create change and dismantle oppressive systems; archives are crucial for this learning.
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