Scope and arrangement
The Nancy Meehan papers, dated 1953 to 2011 (bulk dates 1970s to 2000), reflect her career as a choreographer and dancer. The collection mostly documents the Nancy Meehan Dance Company and, to a much lesser extent, the Erick Hawkins Dance Company. The collection holds choreographic notebooks, promotional materials, photographs, touring files, and sound and video recordings.
The Choreographic Notebooks are Nancy Meehan's contemporaneous notes about productions for the Nancy Meehan Dance Company. They offer insight to her development as a choreographer and dancer. These hand-written notebooks have detailed dance movements, names of dancers, dates, sketches, production names, and narratives about dance techniques. The first choreographic notebook begins with Meehan's tenure with the Erick Hawkins Dance Company and follows through to her company's debut production Hudson River Seasons.
The New York Season files mostly reflect the Company's in-house residency productions with box office receipts, invoices, correspondence, assorted newsletters, notes, playbills, performance agreements, press releases, and theatre reservations.
Company Touring files hold correspondence (including contract talks), brochures, clippings, flyers, performance schedules, grant applications, and invitations to apply for an artist-in-residence. The files also hold information regarding Meehan's performance in Japan including copies of the original Spirit of Design portfolio and Candido's design brochures for Meehan's introduction and performance (both in Japanese).
Promotional material for the company consists of Flyers, Programs and Posters used to attract the theatre-going audience. Most of the material focuses on performances held in New York City. These files show samples of Candido's designs for the brochures and posters.
The Photographs span forty years of Company productions. Photographs are of live performances, Meehan dancing solo or rehearsing with other dancers, and cast pictures. The bulk of the pictures were taken by professional photographers.
Identifying information can include production title, performance venue, dancers, photographer credits, and the year photographed. Almost all of the photographs are were taken in black and white film. Related materials include negatives and contact prints.
Commissioned photographers credits include Maryette Charlton, a filmmaker and photographer; Lois Greenfield; Dave Sagarin; and Johan Elbers (principle photographer from the mid-1980s to 2000s).
The Reviews files hold published critical reviews (mostly from The New York Times) of Meehan's productions such as Live Dragon (1973), Bones Cascades Scapes, which features Candido's hemp design costumes (1974); Threading the Wave (1977), created to evoke Meehan's childhood experiences of visiting the wharfs of San Francisco; and Guest To Star (1985) a piece that implies an eternal contrast between the eternal (star) and the transient (guest).
Erick Hawkins Dance Company material is significant for the six choreographic notebooks created by Meehan during her tenure. Her notebooks document the early phase of Meehan's dance techniques before establishing her own company. The files also contain photographs, programs, reviews of the Company's performances, and copies of some early interviews of Hawkins and company.
Meehan also documented her Company's productions on audio and moving image recordings. Productions were recorded on a wide variety of formats. Pending digitization the material is unavailable.