archives in context: national and international

What kinds of archives already exist in Canada? And what kinds exist elsewhere? As part of our 2020/2021 research, we interviewed the lead archivists from organizations across Canada and abroad. Here is what we learned.

NATIONAL CONTEXT

The general landscape of archiving performance in Canada is divided between artist/company archives, universities archives, and independent archive organizations.

Artist/Company archives are the internal archives of an artist, group, or company. These largely exist scattered across hard drives or as private Vimeo videos. They are typically not organized, nor managed. The majority of audiovisual performance documentation exists in this category.

University archives are archives attached to universities. Performing arts collections exist in most universities, each typically focussing on the history of their region. For example, the LW Connolly Archives at Guelph University is a common depository for theatre artists in southern Ontario. In our consultations with archivists in university libraries, we learned that there is little to no communication between archives and little to no support for accepting video documentation.

Independent archives are initiatives like videocan who are dedicated to archiving performance in Canada and typically have a national focus. Other independent archives are Dance Collection Danse and Theatre Museum Canada. These organizations are either entirely funded through arts council funding (DCD and videocan) or almost entirely funded by private donors (Theatre Museum Canada). They also focus predominantly upon physical materials produced by artists or any material, with video only being one part.

INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT

Outside of Canada, the same structure of artist/company, university, and independent archives exist. However, unlike in Canada, a number of independent archives exist that specifically focus on archiving and sharing videos of performances. The most celebrated of the these archives are:

  • New York Public Library’s Theatre of Film and Tape Archive (TOFT), New York

  • Victoria & Albert’s National Video Archive of Performance (NVAP), London

We spoke with the leaders of both organizations to understand how they function, in particular their relationship to their local unions and associations and their relationship to digital dissemination. What we learned is that none of them have agreements with unions or associations that permit them to operate within a digital context. For this reason, during the 2020 phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, these major archives were unable to share any of their material.

Theatre of Film and Tape Archive (TOFT) is an archive housed within and funded by the New York Public Library. Their goal is to document theatre and performance that happens within the USA. In the 1970s, a special agreement with the major performing arts unions of the USA was created that granted TOFT the permission to film stage productions. TOFT films approximately 50-60 productions every year, each shot and edited live. They occasionally shoot outside of New York, but they are predominantly focused on New York and are predominantly focused on theatre, as dance productions tend not to run long enough to accommodate the preparation required for a shoot. TOFT is arguably the most significant theatre and performance archive in the world, with people travelling from across the globe to visit it every year.

National Video Archive of Performance (NVAP) is the younger sibling of TOFT. Funded by the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and founded on the same principles and model as TOFT was in the 1980s, they produce in-house filmed versions of the productions taking place within the United Kingdom. They have a specific agreement with British Equity outlining specific permission requirements for each film. At first they were largely focused on the West End, but have broadened their approach more recently to include Fringe and more independent artists, taking a more holistic approach to being a national video archive. In their history, they have shot over 400 productions. Unlike TOFT, they edit works in post.

Neither TOFT nor NVAP welcome videos into their collections that are produced by artists themselves. The reason for this is largely due to their inability to verify that the permissions they need have been met by the producers of the documentation.

Why videocan does not want to be a Canadian version of TOFT or NVAP

In our consultations with the directors of TOFT and NVAP, it became clear that the easiest road towards establishing an archive would be to have a unique agreement with the unions and associations and limit sharing of the works to a physical location. However, the pitfalls of this model as well as the conditions it requires to be successful were also clear:

  • TOFT, despite its efforts, largely focuses on the works in New York, and thus sets New York performance as a standard for what counts as ‘American’ theatre.

  • NVAP, under its new direction, aims to document a broader range of forms (i.e. not just West End productions), but it is only able to do so because of the size of its geography, and in practice it is still London-centric.

One can easily imagine the same issues emerging with a Canadian counterpart to the organizations. It might be based in Toronto or Montreal or Ottawa and artists with money would travel to view works there for their research. Students going to school in that city would benefit from its proximity, while students elsewhere would dream of being able to visit it. The production team associated with the archive would actively document works in the city and the general eastern Canada region (east, yet likely ignoring most productions east of Montreal).

So while TOFT and NVAP represent great achievements for preserving performance in their respective contexts, any version of them in Canada would repeat—and thus preserve—the same failures we observe across Canada’s performing arts today: overcentralization in ‘eastern’ Canada work, dependency on travel, and a lack of accessibility. Moreover, in serving a broader archival mandate, these organizations are not really archives for artists at all. The works produced by these archives belong to the archives themselves. TOFT owns their videos and NVAP co-owns the videos with Equity. All other artists involved have no control over the materials.

OTHER ARCHIVE MODELS OUTSIDE OF CANADA

In addition to TOFT and NVAP, we also spoke with two other archives: Die Archive des Freien Theaters in Berlin and Numeridanse, Lyon.

Die Archive des Freien Theaters was started in 2016 as a response to the German State Theatre structures. Based out of MIME Centrum in Berlin, it focuses on archiving the German Free Scene, what in Canada we would call the independent scene. Where state theatres have their own internal archives, the Free scene has historically been marginalized in Germany and this project emerged as an attempt to preserve their history, collecting everything from video to posters to other paraphernalia. Like TOFT and NVAP, they produce video documentation themselves, but they also accept documentation donations. Among the obstacles they face, the most restricting is that collecting societies in Germany collect on all forms of public publishing outside of designated archives and libraries. This means that any instance of sharing a work publicly outside the physical archive incurs fees from multiple collecting societies, which would virtually bankrupt the archive in a short time.

Numeridanse is an online video archive funded by La Maison de la Danse in Lyon. Numeridanse aims to share dance videos shot in house and from around the world. It is a semi-private organization presenting works and they also document works themselves which get included in their online catalogue. Other artists can submit videos to the catalogue by becoming contributors, paying an amount for the platform and the exposure. Only professional artists may submit and, in their submission process, it is assumed that artists have the right and ownership of their works to be able to contribute to the catalogue. Most artists featured on their platform, including the Canadian artists, do not list full works. To use the website, users agree to a non-commercial use clause.

CONCLUSIONS

Though all of these archives we consulted with are facing significant obstacles in our digital era, there is much that can be gleaned from their different structures.

  1. Tailored agreements with unions and associations are necessary;

  2. Brick and mortar serves the few and the wealthy, but makes the unions and associations feel like their members are protected;

  3. It is possible to both produce documentation in-house and welcome documentation from others in order to expand representation within the archive;

  4. No union or association has a developed digital policy that explicitly understands or recognizes the way that video is used by independent artists in Canada or internationally.

The leading initiatives behind archiving videos of performances have not succeeded in entering into a digital world. The only platforms that have successfully adopted digital models are those that have done so in order to commodify performance documentation—such as Digital Theatre, Marquee, National Theatre Live, or Stratford@Home. These platforms, however, are not archives and do not strive to serve the history of the art form nor the public education of artists.