The collections in the ADF Archives provide a window on American cultural and social history. In documenting not only the development of modern dance but also its relationship to American culture and history, the ADF Archives offers enormous potential for research and scholarship in the humanities.
Users can learn about the collections online and request services or make an appointment to visit the Archives in person. Year-round onsite access to the ADF Collections is offered to dancers, scholars, students, and the general public.
American Dance Festival Collection
Films, videos, photographic materials, sound recordings, administrative
records, and artifacts document dance created, presented, and taught at
the American Dance Festival.
One of the world’s premier cultural institutions,
from its origins at Bennington College in 1934, through the years at Connecticut
College (1948–1977), to its most current season at Duke University
in Durham, NC, the American Dance Festival sponsors the art form of international
modern dance through its presentation of dance performances and support
of choreographers, students, and scholars through commissions, scholarships,
and ground-breaking programs. To learn more, visit ADF
History.
The ADF Collection is organized in three groups:
- Group 1. Moving Images and Recorded Sound
Approximately 3,000 films and videos from 1930 to the present, capturing dance performances, classes, panel discussions, showings, interviews, and special events; audio recordings of classes and lectures by Martha Graham and Louis Horst and others. - Group 2. Photographic Materials
Black-and-white and color prints, negatives, contact sheets, slides, and digitized scans, from the 1930s to the present. - Group 3. Administrative and Festival Records
Festival documentation includes school records, programs, playbills, reviews, posters, other printed items, correspondence, and administrative records, from 1934 to the present. Each summer, ADF videotapes and photographs performances, showings, master classes, panel discussions, and other special events, after which they are added to the Archives.
Using the ADF Collection
Group 1—Moving Images: The ADF Video Viewing Collection (ADFVVC) contains user copies of many of the films and videos held in the ADF Archives, and each year more are added. The ADFVVC is housed at the Duke University Lilly Library on its East Campus. Go to the Duke Libraries’ online catalog to learn what videos are cataloged there. It will be helpful to search in the “Film/Video” format and in “all fields” for American Dance Festival videos and the specific topic or name you want to see. Videos can be watched in one of the Lilly Library viewing stations. Remote users can arrange the interlibrary loan of videos. Videos borrowed by interlibrary loan must be viewed within the borrower’s library. The interlibrary loan procedure is expliained in the ADF Interlibrary loan agreement form. No copying of ADF materials is allowed.
Group 2—Photographic Materials
A draft inventory is available upon request from the Archives. The materials are open to researchers by appointment.
Group 3—Administrative and Festival Records
Materials have not yet been processed and are not open to researchers.
Free to Dance Collection
Film, video, and records created during the production of Free to Dance:
oral history interviews (including transcripts) with noted dancers, choreographers,
and scholars, performance footage of classic modern dances such as Donald
McKayle’s Rainbow ’Round My Shoulder and Pearl Primus’
Strange Fruit; sound recordings, research materials, and production
records. The three-part television series Free to Dance: The African-American
Presence in Modern Dance was co-produced by the ADF and the John
F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in association with Thirteen/WNET
New York. It aired on PBS’ Great Performances: Dance in America
in 2001, and won an Emmy for Outstanding Cultural and Artistic Programming—Long
Form. To learn more about Free to Dance and related subjects, visit the
Free to Dance website.
Using the Free to Dance Collection
A draft inventory is available upon request from the Archives.
Pearl Primus Collection
Papers, printed materials, photographs, and moving images created and
collected by choreographer, dancer, anthropologist, and scholar Dr. Pearl
Primus.
Using the Pearl Primus Collection
The finding aid to the Pearl Primus Collection is available in pdf format. The collection is open to researchers by appointment.
Charles L. Reinhart Collection
Records created by Charles Reinhart Management, Inc., circa 1960 to 1985,
in the course of international dance company management, festival production,
and administration of NEA Artists in Schools and Dance Touring programs.
Go to Meet the Director for biographical
information on Charles L. Reinhart, ADF director.
Materials have not yet been processed and are not open to researchers.
Chuck Davis Collection
Papers, photographs, and printed material created by “Baba”
Chuck Davis, choreographer, dancer, international festival director, and
artistic director of the African American Dance Ensemble.
Materials have not yet been processed and are not open to researchers.
Harper Dance Festival
Collection
Administrative records and posters created at the Harper Dance Festival,
which operated in Chicago circa 1965 to 1975.
Materials have not yet been processed and are not open to researchers.
Reference Services
Queries Dancers, scholars, students, or others with research requests
are welcome to contact the Archives by email at adfarchives@americandancefestival.org.
To View Materials Materials—in the open ADF collections may be viewed in the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections reading room in Duke's Perkins Library. Visits must be arranged in advance with the ADF archivist.
Note on Copyright—All photographs, digital images, and moving images in the ADF collections are the property of the American Dance Festival. Reproduction is forbidden without the express written consent of the ADF. Materials may be subject to additional restrictions including but not limited to copyright and the rights of privacy and publicity of parties other than ADF. Users are solely responsible for determining the existence of such rights and for obtaining any other permissions and paying associated fees, which may be necessary for the proposed use.
Reproduction of Photographic Materials—Please contact the Archives for any requests to reproduce photographic materials. Reproduction of Papers and Printed Materials Onsite researchers may photocopy materials using a copier in the Duke Special Collections reading room.
Reproduction of Moving Images—ADF’s archival films and videos are not for sale. They are accessible for viewing at Duke’s Lilly Library or in an accredited library through interlibrary loan. Licensing of selected moving images is available on a limited basis. ADF Video, a division separate from the Archives, sells the documentary series Speaking of Dance: Conversations with the Masters of Modern Dance.
