Dance Archives in an Online Environment: The Impact of Digital Media on the Preservation of Dance History

Abstract

The archival strategies offered through the Dance Collections Danse (DCD) online database (based in Toronto) illuminate the emerging impulse to educate practitioners about archiving systems for the purpose of facilitating a more immediate organization of materials and information by the companies, choreographers, and dancers themselves. These strategies emphasize the importance of immediacy to the preservation of projects in theatrical dance, not only to avoid historical backtracking but also to generate a “living” history and a sustainable method for presenting contemporary movements in theatrical dance as they arise. While the move to digital archiving evokes the desire to preserve dance as a fundamental part of Canadian arts and cultural heritage, it also presents challenges vis-à-vis negotiating the most effective way to document this ephemeral art form in both development and production. This paper sets out to interrogate the relationship between dance archiving, the preservation of dance history, and digital media.