The American Dance Festival Archives maintains a number of collections that document the development and history of modern dance and its relationship to American culture and society. Materials from the ADF Archives may be viewed by appointment in the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Reading Room in Duke's Perkins Library. Visits may be arranged in advance by contacting the ADF archivist at adfarchives@americandancefestival.org. Visitors will need to comply with Duke's registration and security policies.
The following collections have been processed and are open to researchers:
American Dance Festival Moving Images Collection, 1930-2008
Approximately 2,000 films and videos from 1930 to the present, capturing dance performances, classes, panel discussions, showings, interviews, and special events at the American Dance Festival. ADF does not sell copies of its moving images, but viewing copies of many of these films and videos can be seen at viewing stations in Duke University's Lilly Library. Remote users can arrange for interlibrary loan of videos.
Graham Technique, Bennington College
American Dance Festival Photograph Collection, circa 1930-2008
Includes photographic materials created and collected by the American Dance Festival, including negatives, contact sheets, prints, and transparencies.
Martha Graham and Students, Bennington College
American Dance Festival Company and Biographical Reference Collection, 1934-2003
Includes materials collected by the American Dance Festival pertaining to choreographers, dance companies, and others involved in modern dance, including printed materials, newspaper and magazine clippings, press kits, programs, and correspondence.
Shen Wei Dance Arts by Bruce R. Feeley
Laura Dean (b. 1945) is an American choreographer and composer. In 1972, she established her company, Laura Dean Dancers and Musicians, where she created the choreography for forty works, and in most instances, created the music as well. Dean continued to create works for her company until 2000. She received the Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement in recognition of her accomplishments as a choreographer and composer in 2008. Collection includes photographic prints, contact sheets, negatives, slides, clippings, programs, printed materials, posters, VHS videotapes, and an audiocassette.
Laura Dean by Phillip Jones, 1974
Free to Dance Records, 1987-2004
Free to Dance: The African-American Presence in Modern Dance was a three-part television documentary co-produced by the American Dance Festival and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in association with Thirteen/WNET New York. The series aired on PBS' Great Performances: Dance in America in 2001. It chronicled the role of African-American choreographers and dancers in the development of modern dance as an American art form. The collection includes film, video, sound recordings, oral histories, interview transcripts, business records, photographs, clippings, and research materials created or collected during the production of the three-part television documentary Free to Dance.
Jerome Stigler of Dayton Contemporary Dance Company in Talley Beatty's Mourner's Bench by Bruce R. Feeley, 1998.
Anna Halprin Papers, 1957-1995
Anna Halprin (b. 1920) is a pioneering dancer and choreographer of the post-modern dance movement. She founded the San Francisco Dancer's Workshop in 1955 as a center for movement training, artistic experimentation, and public participatory events open to the local community. Halprin has created 150 full-length dance theater works and is the recipient of numerous awards including the 1997 Samuel H. Scripps Award for Lifetime Achievement in Modern Dance from the American Dance Festival. Her students include Meredith Monk, Trisha Brown, Yvonne Rainer, Simone Forti, Ruth Emmerson, Sally Gross, and many others. Collection includes books, magazines, photographic prints, clippings, flyers, written correspondence, programs, essays, and other printed materials.
Anna Halprin by Connie Beeson, 1976
Harper Theater Dance Festival Records, 1962-1982
The Harper Theater Dance Festival (1965-1975) presented Chicago audiences with a decade of annual performance seasons from a variety of celebrated touring dance companies. Judith and Bruce Sagan, local newspaper publishers and dance impresarios, founded the festival in 1965 at the Harper Theater in the South Side of Chicago, Illinois. In 1970 the festival became part of the newly formed Harper Dance Foundation. In 1971 the festival was moved to the larger Civic Theater downtown because of increased audience demand. The final four seasons were hosted by the University of Chicago's Mandel Hall. The early seasons featured a diverse array of dance performances, while later years focused more specifically on bringing the country's most contemporary and experimental modern dance to Chicago audiences. Favorite performers included Merce Cunningham, Alwin Nikolais, and Paul Taylor. The festival and foundation became dormant after 1975, although they were briefly revived in 1979 to stage a performance of the Paul Taylor Dancers at Civic Theater. Collection includes photographic prints, negatives, slides, posters, press clippings, tickets, company publicity, and other printed materials.
Joe Nash Collection, 1946-1999
Joe Nash (1919-2005) was a self-taught dancer and prominent historian of African-American dance history. Growing up in New York City during the Harlem Renaissance, Nash was inspired by the black arts movement. After returning from his World War II military service, he immersed himself in a self-directed study of dance literature and photography. In the late 1940s and '50s, Nash performed on Broadway and toured with influential modern dance artists such as Pearl Primus and Donald McKayle. He also began teaching and lecturing on dance history in Philadelphia and New York. Nash was a consultant and lecturer at the American Dance Festival from the 1990s until his death in 2005. He was widely considered one of the leading experts on the role of African-Americans in the development of modern dance. During his life, Nash donated materials from his vast archival collection to the New York Public Library, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, The Arthur Hall Collection in Philadelphia, Florida A&M University, the American Dance Festival, and the National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center in Ohio. Collection includes photographic prints, programs, clippings, fliers, and other printed materials.
Joe Nash with Pearl Primus by Gerda Peterich, circa 1947.
Pearl Primus Collection, circa 1920-1994
Pearl Primus (1919-1994) was an African-American dancer, choreographer, anthropologist, and teacher. In 1988, she received the American Dance Festival's first Balasaraswati/Joy Ann Dewey Beinecke Chair for Distinguished Teaching in 1991 and, posthumously, the American Dance Festival/Scripps Award for Lifetime Achievement in Choreography. Collection includes materials created or collected by Primus and by others dating from circa 1920 to 1994, including correspondence, writings, legal documents, research and teaching materials,
clippings, programs, printed materials, photographs, sound recordings, films, videos, and artifacts.Pearl Primus by Gerda Peterich, 1950
Charles Reinhart Management, Inc. Records, 1956-1992
Charles Reinhart Management, Inc. (CRMI) was involved in dance company management, festival production, grant-funded projects, and assorted professional services. Companies managed included the Paul Taylor Dance Company, Meredith Monk/The House, the Glen Tetley Dance Company, the Don Redlich Dance Company, the Lucas Hoving Dance Company, and the Donald McKayle Dance Company among others. Mr. Reinhart was the National Coordinator of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Dance Touring Program from 1967 to 1978. He also developed the dance component of the NEA’s Artists-in-Schools Program (later the Artists-in-Education Program) and served as its National Coordinator from 1970 to 1981. Collection includes correspondence, printed material, and business and financial records created by Charles L. Reinhart and the employees of Charles Reinhart Management, Inc., 1956-1992. Some personal papers of Charles L. Reinhart are also included.
Charles Reinhart by Jack Mitchell, 1980
A note on copying materials and copyright: A self-service copier is available in the Special Collections reading room, and the copying of documents and photographs is permitted. However, all documents, photographs, moving images, and other materials in the ADF collections are the property of the American Dance Festival, and further reproduction or distribution in any form is forbidden without the express written consent of the ADF.
