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Interesting article, worth the $1.95 I paid for it...



PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

         Thursday, August 10, 2000
                               Page: D01
                                            Edition: SF
         Section: FEATURES MAGAZINE / LIFESTYLE
                                            Graphics: PHOTO



                       ARTIST'S MISSION OF SAVING GRACE

                        By Eils Lotozo, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

         The subtle gesture of a hand, the planting of a foot, an undulating
arm, groups of bodies moving through space - these are some of the
evanescent components of dance.

         "It's the most ephemeral of the arts," says Mary Edsall. "It's
totally in the moment."

         A leading figure in the field of dance documentation and
preservation, Edsall has made it her life's mission to fix some of the art
form's beautiful, powerful moments for posterity.

         And now she's brought that mission here.

         Edsall, who has been a curator at the Harvard Theater Collection
and a dance archivist at the Library of Congress, is working to create
something she's calling the Philadelphia Living Artists Archive.

         The archive, says Edsall, a fellow in the doctoral program of
Temple University's dance department, will bring together videos,
photographs, musical recordings, dance scores, printed programs, and other
materials to document the city's rich, diverse dance history - one that
ranges from ballet to modern dance and contemporary dance-performance, to
African American tap and hip-hop.

         There is no local repository for such materials, says Edsall, who
points out that the Free Library's well-regarded Theater Collection doesn't
address dance.

         "Dance history is an important part of the cultural history of the
region," says Edsall, whose passion for the local dance scene got its start
when she was a student at New Jersey's Stockton State College in the early
1980s. "This is where I first encountered modern dance," she says of
Philadelphia. (A favorite memory: frequent expeditions to the Painted Bride
Art Center, one of the city's longest-running presenters of dance.)

         While substantial dance collections exist at the Library of
Congress, the Harvard Library, the University of Ohio, and the New York
Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, they deal mainly
with performers and choreographers with a national reputation.

         "When artists started dying off because of AIDS, that hit the dance
field particularly hard," Edsall says. In 1992, a study of the state of
American dance documentation led to the founding of the Dance Heritage
Coalition, aimed at strengthening the preservation effort.

         But the idea of creating regional or local dance archives is a
relatively new one, Edsall says. "With all the national efforts, we were
kind of lost in the dust. None of it really filtered down to us. And if we
don't do something, all of this stuff is going to disappear."

         She means that literally. Paper stored improperly disintegrates.
Photographs deteriorate. Archivists aren't even certain yet about the
lifespan of video, which has become the central means of documenting dances.
(There also exists a hieroglyphic-like system of recording movement called
Labanotation that enables those trained in it to write actual choreographic
scores. It is generally used by prominent choreographers who want to
copyright their work; few small and local companies can afford to employ
it.)

         Edsall hopes her Living Artists Archive, still in the planning
stages, will not only amass dance-related material but also record the oral
histories of dance figures, as well as stage exhibitions and lecture series
for the public.

         With the help of Terry Fox, director of the Philadelphia Dance
Project, she convened two meetings in the spring with local choreographers
and dancers to discuss the archive idea. She has also done site visits to
assess the quality and state of local dance history treasure troves,
including that of dancer-choreographer Hellmut Gottschild, now 63, former
artistic director of ZeroMoving dance company. Edsall also took a peek into
the rows of boxes stacked on shelves in the basement of her former haunt,
the Painted Bride.

         "Where it will be located, how it will be funded, whether it will
be independent or attached to a university or library, are all things that
have to be decided by the dance community," says Edsall, who is organizing,
with the help of a consultant, a larger meeting to take place in October.

         Through a grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts' Dance Advance
program, Edsall recently visited San Francisco's Performing Arts Library and
Museum, thus far the only regional dance archive in the country. (A group in
Boston is trying to raise the money for a similar facility.)

         "They were independent, and fund-raising was a huge problem," she
notes about the San Francisco archive. "Then they attached themselves to San
Francisco State University, but that association just ended. So there are
pitfalls on both sides."

         Still, the Living Artists Archive is inspiring enthusiasm. Joan
Myers Brown, whose company Philadanco celebrated its 30th anniversary this
year, attended one of the meetings called by Edsall. She thinks a local
archive is a great idea.

         "I think there is such a rich history of dance here, especially in
the African American community," Brown says. "People don't know that Pearl
Bailey started here as a dancer. And that there were black dance schools
that existed even before 1930."

         She could use some help, too, Brown says, with her own disorganized
Philadanco archives. Not only are old newspaper reviews crumbling, Brown
says, but "when I want to see old videos of Philadanco, I have to go to the
library in Lincoln Center."

         Susan Hess, who has been nurturing local dancers for 30 years with
the classes she runs out of her Sansom Street studio, is also a supporter of
the archive. "We're a big city," says Hess, who hosted the spring meetings
at her studio. "We should grow up and do big things."

         Hess' personal archive includes videos of all the dances produced
by participants in her Choreographer's Project, which supports artists'
making new work. She has also documented a series she presented called
"American Dance Pioneers," which included appearances by Pearl Primus and
Anna Sokolow. A Fall Dance Pioneers program will feature evenings with
Carmen DeLavallade and Merce Cunningham.

         Hess hopes to document that series, too, for use in the Living
Artists Archive.

         "This is not stuff that should be stored in my attic or basement,"
she says of the materials she has gathered over three decades. "I don't have
a museum in my house. This should be available to scholars and dancers to
use."

         Eils Lotozo's e-mail address is elotozo@phillynews.com



                  Copyright 2000 PHILADELPHIA NEWSPAPERS INC.
                         May not be reprinted without permission.

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