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Creator
Dance Perspectives Foundation
Call number
(S)*MGZMD 315
Physical description
1.68 linear feet (4 boxes)
Preferred Citation

Dance Perspectives Foundation records, Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library.

Repository
Jerome Robbins Dance Division
Access to materials
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The Dance Perspectives Foundation, founded in 1966, was a New York-based, non-profit organization devoted to supporting dance scholarship, whose flagship project, the International Encyclopedia of Dance, was published in 1998. The Dance Perspectives Foundation records, dating from 1966 to 2003 with the bulk from 1976 to 1998, include board meeting minutes and reports; financial records; fundraising letters and grant applications; and correspondence among the authors, editors, and publishers of the encyclopedia.

Biographical/historical information

The Dance Perspectives Foundation was founded in 1966 as an organization devoted to supporting dance scholarship, through publishing academic and reference works, sponsoring lectures and conferences, and providing research and travel grants to dance scholars. Founding members included dance scholar Selma Jeanne Cohen, editor and artist Karl Leabo, Julliard Director of Dance Martha Hill, Wesleyan University press editor José Rollins de la Torre Bueno, and dance critic Edwin Denby.

From 1966 to 1977, the foundation published Dance Perspectives, a quarterly journal of international dance history founded in 1958 and edited by Cohen. Beginning in 1973, the foundation, in conjunction with the de la Torre Bueno family, awarded the annual de la Torre Bueno Prize for dance studies publications. In 2001, the family and the foundation parted ways, and the Society of Dance History Scholars took over administration of the prize.

In 1976, the Dance Perspectives Foundation received a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant to create a comprehensive scholarly reference work covering the history of dance, after the idea was proposed at a 1974 meeting of the Dance Critics Association. Following an initial planning conference attended by leading dance scholars, an editorial board, with Cohen as editor-in-chief, was appointed to oversee creation and publication of a multi-volume work titled the International Encyclopedia of Dance, with articles commissioned by dance experts from around the world. As the number of articles and associated costs grew, the foundation bolstered their NEH funding with both corporate grants and individual donations.

The project was plagued by financial and editorial troubles, due to the difficulty of providing adequate translations, fact-checking, and proof-reading of the highly specialized, non-English articles; complications regarding the book's illustrations and index; and friction between the foundation board, editorial board, and the encyclopedia's publishers. Originally set to be published by Scribner's in 1983, publication was delayed several times, and after Scribner's merged with Macmillan in 1984, discontent between the editorial board and publishers grew, particularly after a number of manuscripts and documents were lost during the publisher's move to new offices. After a series of failed negotiations, Macmillan terminated the publication agreement in 1987. In 1988, the foundation signed a new contract with the University of California Press, but this was canceled in 1993 after a budget crisis in California forced state university cutbacks. In 1994, Oxford University Press took on the project, eventually publishing the six-volume work in 1998.

Scope and arrangement

The Dance Perspectives Foundation records date from 1966 through 2003, with the bulk dating from 1976 to 1998. The collection documents the foundation's incorporation, board of directors meetings, financial activity, and work on the International Encyclopedia of Dance. There are no records relating to the journal Dance Perspectives.

The Board of Directors files include organizational bylaws, meeting agendas, minutes, annual reports, and memos and correspondence among board members. Meeting documents and correspondence often focus on the encyclopedia, but these records also reflect the foundation's other activities, including awarding the de la Torre Bueno Prize and responding to research grant requests from scholars. Changes in the membership of the board itself are also reflected, particularly relating to extensive changes in board membership that occurred in 1997.

In addition to the general board material, some files deal with specific board members. The Patricia Egan folder contains correspondence, grant documents and an encyclopedia proposal belonging to Egan, who served on the foundation board in the 1980s and 1990s. The Hugh Dugan deposition relates to the 2001 legal proceedings that transferred control of the foundation's bank accounts from former treasurer Hugh Dugan to current board members. The 2003 deposition by Curtis L. Carter, board president, relates to a lawsuit against the Dance Perspectives Foundation by the de la Torre Bueno family that terminated the foundation's involvement with the de la Torre Bueno Prize

The International Encyclopedia of Dance files include materials from the 1976 planning conference, contributor contracts, editorial style guides, publishing agreements, press releases, and correspondence between members of the foundation board, the encyclopedia's editorial board, and authors, illustrators, and publishers (namely, Scribner's, Macmillan, the University of California Press, and Oxford University Press) involved with the encyclopedia throughout its history. These records document the encyclopedia from inception to eventual publication, with correspondence often outlining the various financial and editorial difficulties faced by the project. There are also fundraising records, which document the foundation's attempts to raise money for the encyclopedia through individual donations and corporate grants.

The financial records include the foundation's annual budgets, balance sheets, and investment statements, as well as some encyclopedia-related fundraising letters and grant documents. Specific files document the foundation's major funding sources, including grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Ford Foundation, and a bequest to the foundation by Selma Jeanne Cohen's cousin Frank Herschel Tick.

The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts' dance research collection includes additional material relating to the Dance Perspectives Foundation. Clippings and programs can be found by conducting author and subject searches for "Dance Perspectives Foundation" in the library's catalog.

Arrangement

The collection is arranged alphabetically by name.

Administrative information

Source of acquisition

Gift of Curtis L. Carter, 2004

Processing information

Loose items were foldered and the collection was rehoused.

Compiled by Allison Hughes, Palmer School of Library and Information Science, September 2013.

Related Material

International Encyclopedia of Dance records, 1982-1997. Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library. Selma Jeanne Cohen International Encyclopedia of Dance records, 1964-1995. Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library.

Using the collection

Location

Jerome Robbins Dance Division
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center
40 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023-7498
Third Floor