agm chair's report 2021

NATIONAL DANCE ARCHIVE OF NEW ZEALAND
NGA KAITIAKI TAONGA KANIKANI O AOTEAROA
 
Report from the Chair
17 June 2021
 
After the great uncertainty of last year, this year, in comparison, has seemed relatively straight forward. While oral history projects continue to progress the biggest excitement of the past twelve months has been the publishing of the National Dance Archive’s website: http://www.dancearchive.org.nz/
 
Trustees
Our trustees remain the same this year: Geordan Wilcox in Auckland, Philippa Pidgeon in Christchurch, and the rest of the trustees mostly based in Wellington – Peter Boyes, Kim Crawford, Debra Harris, Katherine Lancaster, Brigitte Knight, and Sue Nicholls. It will be good to now look at ways a more national focus can have the greatest effect on the creation and keeping of dance archives in and relating to New Zealand. 
 
Technology Subcommittee 
Drawing on her past experience of web design, Brigitte has produced a stand-alone website for the NDA. While traffic to the website has been steady, it is a great starting point and it has already proven useful for referring people to on occasions. 
 
It is still the intention to have a NDA presence on the DANZ website and that will link to the NDA website for further information.
 
Archiving Resources Subcommittee
The Archiving Resources Subcommittee’s careful planning of disseminating information has finally been brought to fruit in the form of a website. The subcommittee are now looking at where to next with their efforts.
 
Oral Histories Subcommittee
The NZ Lottery Grants Board funding that we received in November 2019 for an oral history project to interview Jamie Bull, Shona McCullagh, Jenny Stevenson, and Carla van Zon, is nearing completion. We are very thankful for Lyne Pringle once again being the interviewer for this project and appreciate the effort that she has put into conducting the interviews and preparing them for archiving.
 
Jennifer Shennan, who has also received training as an oral history interviewer, offered to conduct an interview of Patricia Rianne. This was a ‘top-up’ of the oral histories Hugo Manson conducted with Patricia Rianne in 2005 and 2007. Jennifer has offered to do this for the Trust at minimal cost, which is very much appreciated.
 
Jennifer Shennan’s own oral history, interviewed by Michelle Potter in February 2019, is still to be completed. Hopefully this will be able to happen in the next twelve months with travel between Australia and New Zealand starting to free up.
 
 
Sponsorship and Funding Subcommittee
With having a website comes an annual expense that we must budget for. The sale of NDA cards in the National Library Shop, as well as at the Russell Kerr Lecture in February this year, continues to provide a small but steady revenue stream. Other avenues of fundraising have been investigated and will need to be followed up on. With social and cultural events a bit more stable now than they were last year it is hoped this will allow to happen some of the fundraising ideas we have had.
 
Other Matters
The NDA was very eager to offer support to DANZ when the opportunity presented itself for funding rounds. It is a very unpleasant situation with DANZ having its funding cut, given the vital role it plays in the cultural, social and educational aspects of dance in New Zealand.
 
The Year Ahead
Building on the efforts of the past twelve months it is hoped to see a growing awareness of NDA in the New Zealand dance community. Developing a closer, stronger working relationship with DANZ will help this, as will the growing awareness and interest in, and the use of the NDA website.
 
With the ever-growing list of oral histories commissioned by NDA, it continues to grow the research resource the Trust is creating. This is now able to be promoted through the website.
 
Conclusion
Once again I offer my sincere thanks to all the Trustees for the time you have volunteered to serving on the NDA committee. Your work, enthusiasm and ideas for the Trust has sustained the progress that was spurred on by the high points of receiving funding and launching the website. I hope you have all found reward to some level through your involvement with NDA over this past year.
 
Thank you once again to our Treasurer, Carolyn McKeefry, for faithfully managing our accounts throughout the past twelve months. And a big thank you to DANZ for offering the meeting room at Toi Poneke gratis. We look forward to closer associations the DANZ team in the coming months.
 
 
Keith McEwing
Chairperson
15 June 2021