Dance Treasures Announced In Washington - Brief Article

Dance Magazine, Dec, 2000 by Heather Wisner

Coming soon: Busby Berkeley, Meredith Monk and the School of American Ballet, together as you've never seen them before. This unlikely congress of dance acts has been assembled at the Library of Congress, which houses the Dance Heritage Coalition, a national alliance of dance libraries and collections. "America's Irreplaceable Dance Treasures: The First 100" is the coalition's new list of artists, companies, even genres (from hip-hop to hula) culled from the suggestions of an array of dance professionals.

There were nearly 900 nominations, pared down by a series of national selection committees to 100. Nominees could be living or dead, indigenous or immigrants, but to be considered an "irreplaceable dance treasure," they had to make a significant impact on dance as an art form, demonstrate artistic excellence, enrich the country's cultural heritage, demonstrate potential to brighten the lives of future generations and prove themselves worthy of international recognition. In October, the coalition issued an illustrated brochure with an annotated list, offering what coalition director Elizabeth Aldrich described as an educational narrative detailing the importance of each nominee.

Who made the list and who didn't is likely to engender controversy, but, said Aldrich matter-of-factly, "that is the nature of a list." In fact, organizers say they hope the list, which was compiled expressly to spotlight the breadth of American dance and the need to preserve it, will generate lots of discussion, heated or otherwise. The list will be expanded and reissued every two years, however, so artists who didn't appear on the first installment may be nominated again.

The list was not meant as a fund-raising endeavor, Aldrich said, although "Save America's Treasures," the preservation program of the White House's Millennium Council, did award a $90,000 matching grant to fund preservation prizes for three of the list's nominees. The Katherine Dunham Center in East St. Louis, Illinois, Cross-Cultural Dance Resources in Flagstaff, Arizona, and the Halla Huhm Foundation in Honolulu, Hawaii, received grants to preserve photos, moving image material, costumes and musical instruments.

For the full list, see www.loc.gov.