The dynamic performing arts archive the ideal program
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Keeping the Performance Alive Dynamic Performing Arts Archives that Include the Audience
description
Transcript of The dynamic performing arts archive the ideal program
Keeping the Performance Alive
Dynamic Performing Arts Archives that Include the Audience
Nature of Performing Arts
DYNAMIC AUDIENCE LIVE
Evolving Unique
Unique Interaction Continuing
dialogue
Momentary
To archive or not to archive?
NO Authoritative
accounts The archive is frozen Best kept in our
memories An imposition of
power
YES Their cultural and
historical significance Archive does not have
to be a substitute or a perfect representation
Solution: Honor the Performing Arts in the Archive
REUSE
By public By practitioners By scholars/researchers and
students
PROGRAMMING
Exhibitions Workshops Lectures Screenings Readings Performances
AUDIENCE
Interviews Videos of audience Online forums for discussion Databases of user
contributions
WEB 2.0
Digitized collections Multimedia Interaction Relationships
The Ideal IngredientsFor creating a dynamic, living performing arts archive
Promotion
Promote awareness and use of the archive
o Publisho Research Initiativeso News Articleso Go to practitioners
and tell them about your services
o Make sure that you, your website, and your facilities are welcoming and usable
Programming
“If its existence is not known, if it does not coexist with the city, the people, the scholars . . . It is a dead archive.”
o Workshopso Lectureso Exhibitionso Performanceso Readingso Screenings
Be Active
“. . . A concerted effort needs to be made, while the performance is created and executed, to document as much as possible of it and to preserve the materials that the performance generates . . . it is a primary concern of repositories to actively promote or contribute to the documentation of performance.”
“Information professionals cannot be passive, because, in theater, sources need to be actively created and sought, otherwise they easily disappear or they do not even come into existence.”
-Francesca Marini
o Actively collect materials
o Interview audience members
o Interview/perform oral histories with practitioners
Website
Transcend the confines of archive on the Web.
InterfaceUsability
Featureso Digitized collections
o Multimediao Show relationshipso Interactivity/ allow
comments
Website
Transcend the confines of archive on the Web.
InterfaceUsability
Featureso Digitized collections
o Multimediao Show relationshipso Interactivity/ allow
comments
Each name is linked to a list of other productions that person was associated with.
Movies include multiple performances and rehearsals
Website
Transcend the confines of archive on the Web.
InterfaceUsability
Featureso Digitized collections
o Multimediao Show relationshipso Interactivity/ allow
comments
Website
Features, continued
o User inputo Ask for audience
interpretations, reactions, opinions, emotions
o Materials – photos, programs (that the archive doesn’t have)
o Videos, blog, entries, etc. could be embedded or added to link lists
Website
Features, continued
o User inputo Ask for audience
interpretations, reactions, opinions, emotions
o Materials – photos, programs (that the archive doesn’t have)
o Videos, blog, entries, etc. could be embedded or added to link lists
Website
Features, continued
o User inputo Ask for audience
interpretations, reactions, opinions, emotions
o Materials – photos, programs (that the archive doesn’t have)
o Videos, blog, entries, etc. could be embedded or added to link lists
“The archive has to be alive; it has to be an entity active for everybody.”
-quoted in Marini’s
“The archive only has a legacy by living on.”
-Jones, Abbott,
