Description With generous support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (https://mellon.org/), the USC Libraries (https://libraries.usc.edu) and the USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance (https://kaufman.usc.edu) created the Dance History Video Archive (DHVA) collection. The collection preserves culturally significant recordings that document global and U.S. dance traditions, creative work by outstanding choreographers and performers, and performances that helped to advance the art form.

The DHVA collection continues the work begun by the Dance Heritage Coalition’s Dance Preservation and Digitization Project to address the challenges faced by dance artists, choreographers, performers, and companies in preserving a record of their work and helping to share it as broadly as possible with global and U.S. audiences and scholars.

Over a 15-year period, the Dance Heritage Coalition assembled more than 1,200 important dance performances digitized at hubs in New York, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. Thanks to generous support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, those recordings were migrated to their new permanent home in the USC Digital Library during the summer of 2018.

The USC Libraries will make the DHVA collection available as broadly as reasonably possible within contractual and legal limits for educational research, study, and teaching.

The collection includes video recordings with certain rights restrictions that require limited access. To inquire about gaining access to these materials, contact (dhva@usc.edu) dance preservation and digital projects librarian Javier Garibay.

In the coming years, the USC Libraries and the USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance will continue to build and enhance the features of this culturally significant digital collection documenting the artistry and diversity of human movement traditions.

Linked assets

Dance Heritage Video Archive