As ABT’s FIRST Educational Archives Intern I have to say, it has been so fun! I am completing my Master of Arts in Dance Education: ABT Pedagogy at New York University. I am then hoping to get my archiving certification and officially become a Dance Archivist. What does a Dance Archivist do? They provide consultation regarding the arrangement of artifacts (digital & physical) accrued by individual dancers and dance companies. Archivists take stock of these artifacts (photos, programs, costumes, letters, certificates, etc), provide digitization guidance/services, and help create websites/databases/albums/collections. For me, the ultimate goal is to objectively clarify the human story left behind by this ephemeral art form, dance.
Being virtual for the duration of my internship was not at all a hindrance. I had plenty of online projects. I was able to create databases that functioned as frameworks for the organization of website information. I also created databases that functioned as advertising tracking and visual representations of program results. One of my favorite projects was organizing the ABT Vimeo collection. I got to then create a user-friendly database that supports the weekly posting of videos on different platforms. This database functions really well and it looks good too!
Another enjoyable aspect of the archiving work has been writing up stories for the website. I had the opportunity to write about two incredible women, Lucia Chase and Billie Holiday. I shared known and possibly unknown contributions that these two remarkable women made to ABT.
I love history and I love ABT. Having the opportunity to do archives work for an organization so dear to my heart has been an incredible experience.
Renee Meiffren
Education Archives Intern
Spring 2021
abtinterns 
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