Dance Heritage Coalition, Inc.

The Dance Heritage Coalition will use this planning grant to partner with the Theatre Library Association, the International Guild of Musicians in Dance, and the Independent Media Arts Preservation to hold three focus groups and a national forum to compile and analyze the archival challenges that performing artists struggle with today. The Dance Heritage Coalition will then create a model archiving program that will include an outline of best practices, a user manual, checklists, templates, and other available resources that can be used by performing artists all over the country. The project will also collect information directly from artists, educators, librarians, and archivists by creating an online discussion tool. The goal of the program is to encourage performing artists to archive their work in order to add to cultural sustainability.