Curator of dance, Michelle Potter, heads to New York

National Library of Australia Gateways, August, 2006 by Robyn Holmes

Dr Michelle Potter leaves her position as the inaugural Curator of Dance at the National Library of Australia in August 2006 to take up the position of Curator of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division at the New York Public Library. A distinguished National Library staff member and internationally recognised dance scholar, critic and curator, Potter holds a doctorate in Art History and Dance History from the Australian National University. She is the recipient of many awards and prizes including two Australian Cultural Studies Awards and the 2003 Australian Dance Award for Services to Dance.

In announcing Potter's appointment, the New York Public Library stated that the library's incomparable collections in dance are in the hands of an extremely experienced artist/librarian 'who will continue to build on the growing well-spring of creative information sought by scholars and artists the world over ... As research libraries define themselves in the 21st century, we must look to leaders who are not only masters in their fields but able to conceptualize new ways of thinking about collections and services for an ever expanding global community of users who depend upon us for their creative and scholarly work.'

Prior to her formal appointment as Curator of Dance in 2002, Potter had a long association with the National Library. She was the Library's Esso Fellow in the Performing Arts from 1988 to 1990, during which she created a major series of oral history interviews to document Australian dance history and produced two National Library publications, A Full House and A Passion for Dance. In 1996, she curated the Library's exhibition Dance People Dance, which toured Australia under a Visions of Australia grant until 1999. It is now an online publication.

Between 1997 and 2001, Potter was manager of the Keep Dancing! project, an initiative of the Australia Council to support the National Film and Sound Archive, the National Library of Australia and Ausdance to develop a national archival collection of dance materials. As part of that project she co-scripted, researched and produced two videos-An Avalanche of Dancing: The Ballets Russes in Australia 1936-1940 (1999) and the award-winning Boro's Ballet: The Making of an Australian Ballet 1939-1961 (2001)-and the DVD The Australian Ballet: Opening Act 1962-1972 (2002). A further one-year Australia Council grant in 2002 enabled the Library to appoint Potter as its first Curator of Dance and, in 2003, the Library made a visionary commitment to its dance collections by appointing Potter as a permanent Curator of Dance in its Music and Dance Branch.

Her achievements at the National Library are especially evident in the way unique Australian dance collections have been built across manuscript, pictorial, oral history, music and ephemera collections. She is also responsible for the development of the national online dance service, Australia Dancing, in association with Ausdance. It is a 'boutique' portal that has had remarkable success in serving a specialist community both nationally and internationally. Potter's role in advocating to the dance community the importance of the role of libraries and archives in documenting their art form has also raised broader understanding of the contribution of dance to the nation's cultural life. This has been recognised by the recent major three-year Australian Research Council grant jointly awarded to the National Library, The Australian Ballet and the University of Adelaide to investigate the legacy of Colonel de Basil's Ballets Russes company visits to Australia in the late 1930s. The resources from this project are being digitised and documented on the Ballet Russes website.

The Library farewells and thanks Potter for her sustained contribution to Australian dance, most especially through the development of collections and online services, and for producing a major body of interpretative publications relating to the nation's dance collections. Her contribution has significantly enhanced the documentary record and preservation of Australia's dance heritage and culture.

The new Curator of Dance will be Lee Christofis who will take up his position on 18 September.

Robyn Holmes

Curator of Music