A CALL FOR RESEARCH ARTICLES

PRESERVING DANCE AS A LIVING LEGACY

As the dance world rushes forward into ever more sharply cutting edges of investigation, we remain mindful of the history on which today’s dance is built. Such organizations as the Dance Heritage Coalition, National College Choreography Initiative, the Balanchine Trust, and the Dance Notation Bureau, among many others, supply frameworks and guidance for keeping dances, performances, and choreographers’ legacies alive. Today’s choreographers, too, recognize that press archives, video recordings, and statements of philosophy are part of their toolbox.

We invite research submissions to a special issue of Dance Chronicle devoted to “Preserving Dance as a Living Legacy,” edited by Lynn Matluck Brooks and Joellen Meglin. Papers might address subject matter such as, but not limited to, topics suggested below:

- Are choreographers interested in preserving their own works for posterity? Should they be interested? Which methods have choreographers used record their own works?

- What are some known models for maintening an artistic legacy? How do these work, and why have they been successful? What might make these models more effective?

- What is gained, what is lost, and what changes as works pass from the original artists’ domain to performance by groups distant from that creative impulse?

- How do archives – personal, company, public, performing arts – support the work of preservation and reconstruction?

- How have international markets, media representations, and/or the Internet influenced the survival of particular dance works?

- Which kinds of dance are most frequently preserved and reconstructed? Why is this the case? What are we missing in our focus?

- How can we educate today’s dancers about the value of learning the dances of the past? Why should we so educate them?

- How do current audiences respond to reconstructions of dances from past periods? What changes or adaptations must be made to appeal to current audiences and what issues are involved in such changes?

- All manuscripts will receive double blind peer review. Submissions will be accepted any time up to March 25, 2010. Send manuscripts or inquiries to Lynn Matluck Brooks at lynn.brooks@fandm.edu or Joellen Meglin at jmeglin@temple.edu. Style and formatting guidelines are available as “Instructions for Authors” at: www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=t713597243~tab=submit~mode=paper_submission_instructions