Picture this…

So, it’s my last week here and I was flipping through my phone and found a TON of photos that, for whatever reason, never made the blog.  I would be completely remiss if I didn’t share these with you, dear readers, so please accept my apologies…the photos are pretty much just a few of my favorite things from the collections that I’ve worked on that didn’t make the blog until now.

Something to note…included in the gallery are a few pictures of some very “unique” cigarette ads that I found in old programs – I found that 60% of the ads from programs in the ’70s were cigarette ads, 30% high-end liquor, and maybe 10% luxury goods.  Tells you something about the audience expected at performances and social mores of the time period.

Now…click on the first thumbnail and you’ll be able to flip through larger versions of the photos.  Enjoy!

First day on the job and an intern sets off the fire alarm trying to make mac n’ cheese in the microwave…kids.

Duke University’s Library Service Center – first day on the job and I was blown away.

1975 Harper Theater Dance Festival Marquee Poster

Psychedelic 1971 Marquee Poster

One of the famous Jasper John’s “Bullseye” posters – check out my “fellow” Fellow at the Dance Notation Bureau’s blog, she also found one of these!

1/2 inch open-reel video box – unfortunately, we don’t have the right equipment to transfer this!

Cool find for Chicagoans – audio reel from Studs Terkel’s radio show where he interviewed John Cage and Merce Cunningham

Erick Hawkins perspective on dance’s intrinsic value

Telegram from John Cage

More autographs – this one from Yuriko.

Letter from Charles Reinhart – dictated letters require a litte context.

Department of State coverage of an international Alwin Nikolais performance

I love a man who knows how to effectively utilize a hat as a prop

“Please pay now”…hand-written bills seem so much more friendly, somehow.

The monthly zine for the Chicago MENSA society – the Sagans placed a Festival ad in this issue.

Membership notes from a Dance Notation Bureau newsletter

Terrible cigarette advertising found in a 1975 program (NOT a Harper Theater Dance Festival program!)

More cigarette advertising from programs – not sexy.

Pretty obvious…

Ethel in unidentified production at LSU

Ethel’s postcard home from Bennington

Sheet music for dance exercises from Ethel’s days at Bennington

Profile of Ethel documenting her return to graduate school in the 1970s.

Up Next – EAD and a New Collection!

Well, work on the Harper Theater Collection has finally closed out – I’ve finished the arrangement of the collection and, this past week, completed my very first EAD finding aid, which is now posted in Duke’s online catalog.  Now, since I’ve got a little time before I journey back to Chicago for the practicum portion of my Fellowship, it’s on to a small scrapbook collection from an alumnae of Bennington College’s famous dance program.  More about that in a sec, but first I just want to complain talk about some of the difficulties joy of working with EAD and XML.

Where to start…where to start.  Hmmm…for a first, this was definitely the first time that I’ve produced something completely in XML, beyond class assignments, where I used some of the EAD finding aid tools like Archivist’s Toolkit and Oxygen.  And…as we used a very basic template in NotePad Pro, I really had to learn the fundamentals, elements, and attributes of DACS and employ them properly in XML – here’s a look at how my day pretty much went for the last few days of last week.

XML fun time!

The thing that’s great about tools like Archivist’s Toolkit and Oxygen is that they pretty much do that for you, so all you need to have is an understanding of the structure and tags defined by DACS when inputting the finding aid information into the appropriate fields.  You don’t necessarily need to know the specifics about XML coding when using them – the beautifully formatted finding aid just gets generated for you.  Awesome, right?  Definitely – it makes our job as archivists much more efficient and, once you get the hang of their user interfaces, extremely intuitive.  However, the only downside that I can see is that it can be easy to lose sight of the actual coding and metadata required for developing an EAD finding aid…or, at least that was my experience.  Hand-coding is another game completely and I actually feel like it’s been a great weapon to add to my arsenal.  If something goes wrong when I’m using something like Archivist’s Toolkit or Oxygen in my next job, I now have the knowledge to dig into the XML and code by hand if necessary.  It also makes me incredibly grateful to have these tools since it takes so darn long to actually write everything out!

Ethel Tison Chaffin

But…enough about that.  Let’s talk about something FAR more fun – the new collection I get to work on, which is that of Ethel Tison Chaffin. Her collection is just fascinating.  Born in 1921, Ethel was a dancer from the very beginning – although she may not have known it.  She took dance classes with a variety of instructors and, as a college student, studied dance at Louisiana State University, New York University, the University of Maryland, and Bennington College.  Her instructors include John Martin (former dance critic at the New York Times), Charles Weidman (Humphrey-Weidman Technique), Ethel Butler (Martha Graham Technique), Nina Fornoff (Hanya Holm Technique).  Ethel also participated in master classes with Martha Graham and Katherine Manning.  The collection holds personal, dance-related memorabilia of Ms. Chaffin with materials dating from circa 1930-1993, which include photos,

One of Ethel’s favorite performances

newspaper clippings, programs, drafts of speeches given to college students, and correspondence are housed within a scrapbook and one Hollinger box.  Many of these materials are annotated by her,* providing even greater insight into the life and times of dancer during the 1940’s and 1950’s.  It’s a small collection, so I’ll be

able to finish it during this last week here at ADF and the finding aid will also soon be available to anyone who might be interested in checking it out.  I’ll post that link once it’s up!

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*I LOVE annotated materials, the commentary from the subjects portrayed really brings everything to life and it’s almost like a voice speaking to the archivist as she processes the collection and to the researchers using the materials…whereas we, as archivists, are often the voice of the collection to researchers and the materials must speak on their own to researchers, I find that it can be a somewhat “dry” voice as the personality must be inferred.  It’s wonderful to have the person actually living the history providing commentary as we meander through their memories.

Shen Wei at NCMA

Well, probably the coolest aspect of my Fellowship at ADF has to be the opportunity to see some of the world’s finest dance companies (along with the chance to work on an awesome archival collection…obviously).

Tickets that survived the trip from the theater to my apartment in my black hole of a purse.

For someone that didn’t have much of a dance background, this has been really, really amazing.  I think my favorite performance (until tonight, anyways) has to have been Kyle Abraham / Abraham.In.Motion’s “Radio Show.”  The dancers were incredibly powerful and athletic, yet equally fluid.  The choreography was intensely personal with a storyline that paid homage to Abraham’s father, a victim of Alzheimers and aphasia.  Other performances that I attended included Keigwin + Company, Pilobolus Dance Theatre (an unbelievably conceptual performance), Ragamala, and a few others that I’m sure I’m forgetting…most likely due to the fact that my ticket stubs seemed to jump out of my purse the minute I sat down in the theater.

In something of an “icing on the cake” move, today was another crazy performance and I was lucky enough to score a ticket to see Shen Wei Dance Arts‘ “Undivided Divided” at the

Keeping this one under lock and key

North Carolina Museum of Art. This was truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity as the piece is a site-specific work and is guaranteed to be slightly different depending on location.  Thus far, it’s been performed at a number of institutions and I just feel incredibly lucky to have had the chance to see it at NCMA!

I think this weekend is going to be pretty great too, Paul Taylor on Saturday with “Aureole” is one I’m definitely excited about as it was performed at the Harper Theater Dance Festival – feels like I’m going full circle with my archival work and my performance attendance!  You know, just another day at the office…

Autographs and Archives

For the last few days, I’ve been working on the arrangement of the Festival Records series in the Harper Theater Dance Festival Collection.  Most of my time today, in fact, was spent looking at old correspondence from agents and dance company members who werepart of the festival between 1965 and 1979.  The correspondence ranges from personal Christmas cards to Judith Sagan (donor and Producer of the Festival) to letters from dancers like Alvin Ailey, Merce Cunningham, Daniel Nagrin, and Alwin Nikolais.

Correspondence with Merce Cunningham

Correspondence with Alwin Nikolais

Correspondence with Alvin Ailey

Correspondence with Daniel Nagrin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While I’ve been working on this piece of the collection, I’ve tried to brainstorm how researchers OTHER than dance historians might want to use these records and autograph hunters immediately came to mind.  Archives and Special Collections are not typically the first place that autograph seekers will run to, but they are actually a great resource for their authentication and appraisal purposes – either for something in their own collection or for a possible new addition.  Autograph collectors visiting an archive should go straight to the correspondence and manuscript series and, while not common, some archives have actually collected whole autograph collections, including those at Franklin and Marshall College, the University of Liverpool, and Brandeis University.

I’m sure autograph hunters are uber-aware of their online resources, but I thought I’d compile a few that might be useful for new hobbyists to check out (aside from my personal plug for archival researching):

The Universal Autograph Collector’s Club

eBay Memorabilia Seller’s Guide

Sports Autograph Resource and Community

Autograph Magazine

Dahoov’s Autograph Collecting

Autograph University

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Note to Autograph Hunters:  feel free to let me know if you’ve used archival collections in the past or if you’re interested in learning more about how to use them for some of your future needs!

The Harper Theater Dance Festival Collection

Well, it’s week three of my stint down at the American Dance Festival and I thought I’d take the opportunity to acquaint you with the collection that I am working on – that of the Harper Theater Dance Festival, donated by Judith Sagan.

Named after the Harper Theater (purchased by Mrs. Sagan and her husband, Bruce), the Harper Theater Dance Festival (1965-1975) presented Chicago audiences with a solid decade of annual performance seasons from a variety of celebrated touring dance companies. A reprisal of the festival came in 1978-1979 before it finally bowed to financial and other pressures. Favorite performers included Merce Cunningham, Alwin Nikolais, and Paul Taylor. Other, one-time performing companies included Erick Hawkins, Alvin Ailey, the Boston Ballet, the Joffrey Ballet, Lotte Goslar, Bella Lewitzky, Wendy Perron, and Viola Farber.

Harper Theater Blue Print – Courtesy of the American Dance Festival, Harper Theater Collection

This collection is one that, as a Chicagoan, is close to my heart as an example of what “every day people” can do with their passion for dance. The Sagans, at least when they began the festival, weren’t experts in modern dance. They simply had the passion for the performing arts and were willing to stake a good amount of financial resources against it. The records and artifacts included in the collection chronicle the story of the Sagans, their efforts to bring modern dance to Chicago, and how they developed programs to both entertain and educate their audiences. Records in the collection include a vast amount of reviews of Festival performances (as well as reviews of “their” companies’ performances outside of the Harper Theater Dance Festival), programs, photos, correspondence, financial documents, and technical production notes. In a future post, I’ll share some of the most unique items – especially the advertising materials and correspondence, but thought I’d start with an image of the original blue print of the theater.

The Harper Theater Today, Hyde Park

To compare, here are images of the theater today. As you can see, the theater is currently somewhat run down, but local investors are seeking opportunities to revitalize the area and – one can only hope – that they bring the theater back to its former glory and continue on with the efforts of the Sagans.

 

SO much more to come…

And so it begins…

It’s now been two weeks since this epic Fellowship journey began with an intense week of orientation training in Washington, DC. Orientation was incredibly exciting for me, meeting my fellow Fellows (yeah, we’re all going to get sick of that one after a while!), touring amazing dance collections, working with the Step Afrika! Company, and learning more about the thorny issues of Fair Use in archival materials – specific to dance, of course. The time in DC was certainly action-packed, but also really rewarding and affirmed my sense of the integral nature of the performing arts to our own cultural heritage – and one that can often go underrepresented in many archives. While I learned a lot, I left excited to begin the first phase of my Fellowship out at the American Dance Festival.

Which brings us up to now-ish…after DC, was a one night stop in my hometown of Chicago to pack up the car with my “stuff” and my trusty feline companion* for the six weeks that I’ll be working at ADF in Durham, NC. My first week has been a serious whirlwind – getting lost on a daily basis, wandering around the Duke campus (which, by the by, is honestly one of the most gorgeous campuses I’ve ever seen), meeting the great staff of ADF (big tip of the hat to the interns and student workers as well who are running around like crazy prepping for everything), and settling into my new apartment where I’m taking care of two turtles that are quite intriguing to my cat.

Much more to come, of course, but I should probably note that, from a professional perspective, this is an incredible opportunity and I’m really looking forward to digging into the work here. The collection that I’ll be working on comes from Judith and Bruce Sagan, co-Directors of the Harper Theater Dance Festival, a tragically short-running series dedicated to bringing the biggest names in modern dance to Chicago audiences during the 1960′s and early 1970′s. The materials are largely textual, but also contain a good amount of photographs and an enormous bundle of souvenir programs, tickets, and posters from dance festivals and performances from all over the country. As a Chicagoan, I have to say that this is a fantastic opportunity and I hope that, once it’s fully processed, will provide new insight to the history of modern dance in the city.

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*Should anyone be curious as to how cats react to be stuffed in a carrying bag for 14 hours, please be sure that I can give many exciting stories and also relay helpful tips in sneaking them into hotel rooms for a road break.