Choreographing American Dance Archives: Artist-Driven Archival Projects by Eiko & Koma, Bebe Miller Company, and Jennifer Monson

When we are archiving, are we archiving works or are we archiving to lead to understanding of what that artist has done?¹

Writing about their attempt to archive the Occupy Wall Street movement, #JEZ3PREZ & ATCHU declare, “If we believe ‘another world is possible,’ then another archive must also be possible” (2012). Through their “Anarchives,” they seek to reflect a multivocal, decentralized movement through developing not a single collection, but rather a way of connecting and sharing information, much as the movement itself did. What is important here is the emphasis on the form of archives, not only on content. #JEZ3PREZ & ATCHU argue that archives should not be developed on a one-size-fits-all model or methodology, but rather should develop based on concepts influenced by the specific circumstances and distinctive qualities of the phenomenon being archived.

The authors, here, are contrasting their project with a typical archival collection assembled by archivists through a process of appraisal, accessioning, processing (e.g., creating box and folder content lists, developing finding aids, cataloging), and preserving, all with the goal of eventually providing access to the materials through an institution such as a library or university. A collection is made up of materials that have organically arisen out of the operations of an organization, are no longer in use, and will not undergo further intentional modification (other than preservation) once they have been accessioned. In the case of an archive of a particular choreographer or dance company, materials may include film or video documentation of dances, photographs, programs, newspaper clippings, oral histories, sketches of costumes and sets, musical scores, correspondence, rehearsal notes, budgets, and the like. Archivists endeavor to preserve the provenance of the materials, that is, to maintain their original order. While these records are consciously and intentionally gathered as part of the appraisal and accessioning process, they are not typically gathered with an eye toward creating a specific “story” or legacy.² Rather, the goal is, as much as possible, to create a consistent kind of structure across collections within a particular archive that enables uniform searching through catalog records, metadata, and content themes.³

What #JEZ3PREZ & ATCHU are calling for is the process of archiving to be taken up by those who have created the materials and to be strongly influenced by the actions and values of the organization. The resultant archive should, according to them, be more than just a collection of materials; it should instead be able in content and form to reflect and convey the work itself. If this idea of structuring an archive based on the circumstances and qualities of the work were to be applied to dance, for example, one could imagine archives of various choreographers considering differing choreographic processes. This approach to archiving would bring it into alignment with a definition of choreography put forth by Susan Leigh Foster in her influential 1986 book, Reading Dancing: Bodies and Subjects in Contemporary American Dance. In that text, Foster argues that a dance must be understood as a product of a choreographer’s creative process, including everything from rehearsals to dance training to how the choreographer thinks about the purpose of dance and the dancer. In other words, if a dance is a product of a choreographer’s creative process, if there is an internal logic to artistic processes, ideas about technique, the body, art, and a dance, then an archive created by a choreographer about his or her own body of work would also inherently be part of that choreographer’s creative process.

Over the past five years there has been a growing trend among established American choreographers to create “artist-driven archives” as part of their artistic work. Like reperformance projects, artist-driven archives highlight the ways that dancers have a history of turning to dance archives (their own or others’) as inspiration for new work. Artist-driven archives are created by the artist as an inherent part of the artist’s own ongoing creative process, and in this sense they differ from the traditional archive described above in that...