At Login: danc/se, the symposium held in conjunction with the Canada Dance Festival 2000, the dance community took part in a broad discussion about its own legacy and the state of dance collections in Canada. Creators, educators, critics, historians, scholars, and administrators alike recognized the pressing issues of documentation and preservation, and decided to launch a dance heritage initiative. This strategy is the result of these efforts.
vision The long term objective is... to ensure the preservation of Canada’s dance heritage, recognizing that legacy is vital to the future of a sustainable dance discipline.
strategic objective The strategic objective for this five-year period beginning in 2002 is...
to lay the foundations for maintaining dance heritage in Canada.
strategic directions
A. BUILD A NETWORK Identify a network for dance preservation across Canada by...
launching a dialogue on dance heritage needs among dance practitioners, collections custodians, and dance scholars
identifying the essential components of dance documentation, including methods for documenting the choreographic work and the interpretation
facilitating the self-identification of dance organizations that will maintain preservation capacity for their own archives
promoting awareness of dance heritage needs among collecting institutions and professionals (archivists, librarians, curators, collections managers)
ensuring diversity and geographic range in a dance preservation network, to reflect dance in Canadian society
clarifying roles and mandates of Canadian dance heritage stakeholders, and ensuring that the dance community has a sustained voice in determining the future of its own legacy
B. PLAN NOW TO PROTECT FUTURE CREATION Ensure documentation for future dance creation in Canada by...
promoting legacy awareness among dance practitioners
integrating documentation and record keeping into dance project funding, through project criteria and policy initiatives
building capacity for heritage preservation in the dance community by developing and maintaining self-help tools that can be used by practitioners and organizations
undertaking development initiatives in dance/media and inter-disciplinary activities (film, video, new technologies) that will result in effective documentation
C. PRESERVE PAST CREATION Address the preservation management needs for Canadian dance heritage materials created before 1990 by...
identifying the key extant dance records that are essential to Canadian dance history and to dance scholarship and appreciation
establishing special projects to find appropriate repositories for existing collections
establishing a special program to kick-start the reformatting of dance records on obsolete and at-risk formats
This strategy has been prepared by the Committee for the Preservation of Canada’s Dance Heritage: Lawrence Adams, Miriam Adams, Amy Bowring, Theresa Rowat, Philip Szporer, Vincent Warren, Leland Windreich.
April 2002
further information contact:
Theresa Rowat - Amy Bowring -
prepared with support from The Canada Council for the Arts
