Dance Preservation: The Next Step in American Dance

Dance preservation refers to the process of documenting a piece of choreography with the goal of creating an accurate archive of the work.   Due to dance’s ephemeral and multidimensional nature, it is a much harder art form to capture than other art forms such as writing or painting.  Dance preservation begins with how a piece of choreography is first documented; next is the decision of how the documentation is stored; finally where is it stored and how will others have access to it? The most consequential step is the decision by the choreographer to document a dance from its conception.  When choreographers and their companies do not take this initiative, the preservation process becomes much more difficult.   This paper examines different stages involved in documenting a choreographed work but will be most concerned with the question:  Do dance companies provide the necessary resources to document and preserve the legacies of their choreographers?