Jan Schmidt has been appointed the Curator of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, where she has worked for 20 years, most recently as the Acting Curator. The Library’s Dance Division is recognized as the largest and most comprehensive archive in the world devoted to the documentation of dance.
Ms. Schmidt began in 1989 as a Specialist in the Dance Division’s Jerome Robbins Archive of the Recorded Moving Image, and was later promoted to Coordinator of the Archive. During this time, she produced original documentations of hundreds of dance performances by companies ranging from ballet and modern dance to ethnic and social dance and including such companies as New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Martha Graham Dance Company, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Mark Morris Dance Group, Limón Dance Company, and the companies of Elizabeth Streb, Ron K. Brown, and Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson. In addition she has produced documentation of the work of tap dance great Savion Glover, the Haitian dance master Jean-Leon Destiné, the Korean dance exponent Sun Ock Lee, the Dancers and Musicians of Bali, and the traditional West African dance of Les Ballets Bagata. Recent preservation work on films, which have included such notable works as Martha Graham’s Primitive Mysteries and Night Journey and Alvin Ailey’s Stream, Blues Suite, and Hermit Song will ensure these unique recordings will be available for generations to come. She also acquired films and videotapes through donations from many companies and choreographers and oversaw the work of the Archive, including negotiating with donors and unions to open up previously restricted collections.
Promoted to Assistant Curator in 2007, she worked with the Curator on acquisitions, preservation, access policies and grant writing. She was instrumental in the preservation and presentation of George Balanchine’s ballet Don Quixote, a 1965 film record of the New York City Ballet that captures a rare performance by choreographer George Balanchine and his muse, the then-nineteen-year-old Suzanne Farrell. In addition, she has been active in the presentation of public events and programs such as the recent Danse/Dance -- Paris/New York at the Library’s Bruno Walter Auditorium. The free screenings of several French dance films on May 29 inaugurated a cultural exchange program between Cinémathèque de la Danse and the Jerome Robbins Dance Division. Among the selections were Jean Babilee in Roland Petit’s Le Jeune Homme et la mort (1955)and La Plantation excerpt of Josephine Baker in the Folies Bergeres (1927).
Her publications include “Creating a Dance Archive: Documenting the Art and Collecting its Records,” the Korea Society for Dance Documentation (2008), “The Collaborative Editing Project to Document Dance,” which she wrote with M.N. Levine, M.M. Nichols, and E. Peck (2001), and “Djoniba Dance and Drum Centre,” New York Stories (2001).
About the Jerome Robbins Dance Division
The Jerome Robbins Dance Division’s mission is to connect artists, scholars and dance lovers to the world of movement. The Division’s commitment is to preserve and provide free access to its unequaled collections of resources, ranging from multi-camera recordings of dance performances to rare manuscripts. As the active memory of the dance community, the Dance Division honors the past and offers inspiration for the future. The Dance Collection, as it was then known, was founded in 1944 as a separate division of The Research Libraries of The New York Public Library at the insistence of staff, dancers, and dance historians and writers. In its Lincoln Center home since 1965, the Jerome Robbins Dance Division is used regularly by choreographers, dancers, critics, historians, scholars, journalists, publicists, filmmakers, graphic artists, students, and the general public.
About The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts houses the world’s most extensive combination of circulating, reference, and rare archival collections in its field. Its divisions are the Circulating Collections, Jerome Robbins Dance Division, Music Division, Billy Rose Theatre Division, and the Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound. The materials in its collections are available free of charge, as are a wide range of special programs, including exhibitions, seminars, and performances. An essential resource for everyone with an interest in the arts – whether professional or amateur – the Library is known particularly for its prodigious collections of non-book materials such as historic recordings, videotapes, autograph manuscripts, correspondence, sheet music, stage designs, press clippings, programs, posters, and photographs.
