Expanding the Archives
Since 2001, Valarie Williams’ passion for contributing to the legacy of dance— in how it's preserved, and who is preserved— drives her choices in documenting choreographers’ works outside the traditional 20th Century canon. She focuses her individual notation and documentation projects on the works of Bebe Miller, Dr. Pearl Primus, world dance forms, and post-modern creators.
Archiving Black Performance: Memory, Embodiment, and Stages of Being
Archiving Black Performance: Memory, Embodiment, and Stages of Being represents a collaborative effort to establish a vision for the transmission of identity and race through the embodiment of dance repertory acquisition of internationally acclaimed black women dance performers and choreographers that brings together students, faculty, community, and professionals. Co-PIs Crystal Perkins and Valarie Williams lead a team to engage with the work of the late Dr. Pearl Primus via her transmitter Ursula Payne, Director of the Frederick Douglass Center at Slippery Rock University; Bebe Miller of Bebe Miller Company; and Carolyn Adams and Michelle Fleet of the Paul Taylor American Modern Dance Co. These investigations open space for the next generation of women of color that we’ve begun to identify and for a Summer Institute in partnership with the African American and African Studies Community Extension Center, for young women dancers of color.
The Lost Dance of Agon (1957)
Valarie Williams and fellow notation professionals Mara Frazier and Ambre Emory-Maier read the original pencil draft notes of notator Billie Mahoney who notated Balanchine’s Agon in 1957. At the encouragement of the Balanchine Foundation Video Archives Department, the team is reconstructing the lost dance of Balanchine’s Agon –The Gailliard. This section was notated as Balanchine was choreographing, but was lost in the mists of time. In October 2021, Williams discovered the score in the archives at Ohio State and she and the team worked with the Geroge Balanchine Foundation Video Archives to stage The Gailliard on artists of New York City Ballet May 2022.
Cultivating Future Generations
Interested in cultivating the next generation of legacy holders and professionals, Valarie Williams receives funding to create educational research opportunities that take her around the world teaching and mentoring dance professionals interested in documenting movement. At home, Williams engages students in a multi-year process utilizing the 600+ World Dance Collection inside the Special Collections at Ohio State University’s University Libraries.
