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ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 52| August 2001


Keep Dancing! A Fond Farewell

After four very successful years the Keep Dancing project has come to an end. The project was established in mid-1997 as a collecting partnership between ScreenSound Australia and the National Library of Australia and was supported by the Australian Dance Council Inc. (Ausdance). Funding was provided from a series of grants totalling $262 000 from the Australia Council over a period of four years (1997–2001) and was supplemented by in-kind support from the partners.

Keep Dancing was established to encourage the preservation of Australia’s choreographic heritage. The project prospered under the expert management of Dr Michelle Potter and achieved outcomes of major significance including the establishment of the Australian Dance Collection, a dispersed, multimedia, subject-based entity with a flourishing online directory at www.nla.gov.au/ausdance; recording of 25 oral history interviews, acquisition of paper-based materials, and film and video materials. Personal papers, photographs, performance programs and oral history interviews have been added to the National Library’s collection while moving image material has been added to ScreenSound’s collection.

The online directory brings together this dispersed collection of dance resources. Michelle Potter reflects that ‘while there has always been a wealth of dance material in both the National Library and ScreenSound Australia, to have had the opportunity to start drawing this material together as a conceptual whole that has an online presence has been a huge pleasure.’

The partnership has fostered a strong sense of cooperative collecting that has been widely admired and will continue even though the project has ceased its active life. Both institutions will continue to seek out and acquire Australian dance materials.
—Chris Foster

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