Chicago Dance History Project Digital Preservation

FAIN: PG-280806-21

Chicago Dance History Project (Chicago, IL 60611-1558)
Jenai Cutcher (Project Director: January 2021 to November 2023)

A preservation assessment and draft preservation plan for the digital archives of the Chicago Dance History Project, a collection of over 20,000 digitized items including oral histories, photographs, ephemera, and audiovisual materials documenting the history of dance in Chicago from the twentieth century to the present. Highlights include interviews with dancers who worked with nationally recognized artists such as Katherine Dunham and Bob Fosse, archival documents related to Sammy Dyer School of the Theater director Shirley Hall Bass, and photographs documenting the independent, experimental dance scenes of the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s. The archive is available online through the organization’s website and has been used by documentary filmmakers, the news media, and students and researchers writing dissertations and books. The project would also include basic training in digital archival practices for staff.

This grant will enable Chicago Dance History Project (CDHP) to engage an archival consultant to conduct a preservation assessment, draft a future plan for our digital archives, and provide support staff with basic training. This project is the first step in our long-term goal to properly catalog and preserve the materials that are currently under our care; create policy, standards and workflows to manage future donations/acquisitions of materials; and create a fully searchable database to make them easily accessible to the public.

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