Dancing Archives - Archive Dances: Exploring Dance Histories at the Radcliffe College Archives

by Thom Hecht

Overview

This book presents the first in-depth archival exploration of a lost history of dance as an extracurricular activity at Radcliffe College, the women's liberal arts college of Harvard University, during the first half of twentieth century. Using archival story-ing, an innovative methodology that brings the researcher's lived experience at the Radcliffe College Archives into the historical discourse, three archive stories were created. These vivid narratives thrive in the researcher's personal encounters with the surroundings of the archive and the interpretation and reading of what is to be found giving profound insights into what it means to walk in the footsteps of Radcliffe dance history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783837624793
Publication date:	01/28/2014
Series:	Critical Dance Studies , #29
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Thom Hecht received a Ph.D. in Dance from Texas Woman's University and held an appointment as Visiting Fellow at Harvard University (2010-2012). His research interests embrace the history of dance in higher education, dance pedagogy, and gender studies.

Table of Contents

I Introduction

Mapping Dancing Archives - Archive Dances 9

Telling Archive Stories 9

Moving from Archival Theory to Archive Stories as Research 13

Radcliffe College: The Coordinate Sister of Harvard University 115

Narrating Archive Stories from the Radcliffe College Archives 23

II Contextualizing the Archival Discourse

The Paradigm Shift from Practice to Theory 27

The Scholarship of Archiving 27

From Archival Practice to Archival Theory 28

The Digital Turn in Archiving 35

Digital Archives in the Performing Arts 43

Preserving and Documenting Dance in America 47

III Archival Story-ing as Methodology

Experiencing the Archival Discourse 51

First-hand Experiences of the Archival Discourse 51

Archive Stories from Around the World 53

More Tales from the Archives 58

Archive Stories in the Performing Arts 62

Archival Story-ing as Methodological Framework 66

Creating, Drawing Upon, and Experiencing Archive Stories 68

IV Archive Story I

The Strongest Girl in Radcliffe 73

The First Visit to the Radcliffe College Archives 73

A Chance Encounter: Finding Eleanor Stabler Brooks 77

How Can I Introduce Eleanor to You? 81

The First Lead: "Said Mine Would Do" 84

Eleanor's Gymnasium Schedule: Advanced-Level Classes 88

Eleanor's Gym Suit: Clothing for Physical Education 91

Eleanor's Athletic Ambitions: The Strongest Girl in Radcliffe 96

Eleanor's Athletic Schedule: Her Father Disapproves 102

My Ending Dance Alongside Eleanor 105

V Archive Story II

The Teacher Who Danced With Knives 107

Turning Over a New Leaf 107

How I Meet Katharine Schroeder 110

Katharine, Teacher of Dancing at Radcliffe College 117

Katharine's Dance Offerings at Radcliffe College 127

Milestones in Katharine's Dance Career 130

Katharine's Teaching Philosophy 135

The Pleasure of "Seeing" Katharine 140

Dancing Between the Clashing Blades 142

VI Archive Story III

From Dancing Elephants and Men at Radcliffe 145

How Nature is Affecting Scholarship 145

The Return of the Gym Suit 150

I Feel Like an Elephant Trying to Dance in Them 153

Bridging the Archival Gap 156

Living the Historical Context as an Archival Lead 163

Connecting to John Holden 169

Exploring Gender within the History of Harvard-Radcliffe 172

Coeducational Issues in the Radcliffe Gymnasium 176

Dancing Together with Elephants and Men 178

VII Conclusion

Expanding the Possibilities of Writing Histories 183

How Not to End an Archive Story 183

The Archive as a Living-Site-of-Knowledge 186

The Archive-Outside-the-Archive 188

The Archive as Archival History-in-the-Making 190

Archival Collaborations as the Future of Historical Writing 193

Post-Scriptum: The Dance After the Ball Ended 195

Acknowledgements 197

Works Cited 199

Editorial Reviews

"Hecht will Geschichte verlebendigen, und das gelingt ihm."

Miriam Althammer