Transmission of Fokine's Figures

Although both digital and analog forms of textual preservation provide their own challenges, I believe that the true advantage in digitally preserving Fokine’s Choreographic Notation for Le Dieu Bleu lies in the ability to contextualize Fokine’s work in a multimedia environment. The issue with Fokine’s Choreographic Notation lies in the fact that the language of modern dance is rudimentary and given the unpredictability of movement it is impossible to contain Fokine’s dynamic choreography on a stagnant page. Thus, confining the preservation of Fokine’s Choreographic Notation to solely text seems counterintuitive to the preservation of Fokine’s movement. 

In my ideal digital preservation of Fokine’s Choreographic Notation for Le Dieu Bleu, it would be part of a special collection on the online database of a dance-focused conservatory, like Boston Conservatory or Julliard. As these universities are dance-focused, they will understand the importance of Fokine’s work, and will have the scholars and dancers whom will benefit from access to it. My ideal multimedia exhibit would pair the digital scan of Fokine’s writing directly alongside the short surviving video clip of Nijinsky performing Fokine’s choreography, and the modern video of Ballet Russes performing Le Dieu Bleu. I believe that by directly placing the stagnant writing alongside the text, the issues in notating modern dance will become apparent to the viewer. Additionally, in this exhibit, there would be a place for the editor to write a note on the history of Fokine, the Ballet Russes, and the history of choreographic notation. In the history of choreographic notation, images of Feuillet’s Chorégraphie, ou L'art de décrire la dance par caracteres, figures et signes desmonstratifs, avec lesquels on apprend facilement de soy même toutes sortes de dances would be employed to underscore the differences inherent in the notation of ballet and modern dance.

Unfortunately, there are countless issues that arise when attempting to preserve a text digitally. First, the institutions that host the digital resource can be unstable. Dance programs in particular are showing signs of instability and underfunding, like Boston Conservatory’s recent merger with Berklee College of Music. Aside from institutional instability, the servers that the website will be hosted on are unstable as well. As they will likely be housed on external servers, we have no direct control over the upkeep of the servers. Additionally, the videos are housed on YouTube, and could be removed due to copyright issues. Lastly, the software that the website was created with may no longer be supported in the future. For instance, the digital preservationist at the Harvard University Archives informed us that Adobe Flash is no longer going to be supported in the coming months, and all previous websites made utilized Adobe Flash software will no longer be supported. There are clearly many issues with digital preservation, but I believe that there are some ways to mitigate them. In my ideal scenario, the exhibit would be available online as described, but the library would also store physical copies of its contents. This could be possible by storing the physical texts and contacting the owners of the videos to send along the film/CD. In this way, if there was an error on the website’s servers, the website could be reconstructed using the physical artifacts (so long as care is taken that we still have technology capable of viewing the videos). 

Although I believe that the digital preservation of the text is best, there are still various benefits to preserving Fokine’s Choreographic Notation for Le Dieu Bleu as part of a book. The book would ideally contain several sections detailing the following – the history of Fokine and Ballet Russes, the history of writing choreography (including images from Feuillet’s Chorégraphie, ou L'art de décrire la dance par caracteres, figures et signes desmonstratifs, avec lesquels on apprend facilement de soy même toutes sortes de dances), the issues with writing modern choreography without a formal language, and finally a section arguing for the need of a formal language for modern dance. By creating a larger work centered around Fokine’s Choreographic Notation for Le Dieu Bleu, the reader will be provided with a depth of knowledge that would not be possible in the digital version. My desired publisher for such work would be Dance Horizons; a subset of Princeton Book Company Publishers that focuses on publishing books on modern dance. This publisher is very experienced in the dance world, in particular with incorporating dance images into their books. Thus, they will have the expertise needed in order to correctly produce the book as I have described. Additionally, they will be in contact with the dance libraries and enthusiasts whom I anticipate to be this book’s main audience. If the book is stored on acid free paper, it will have a lifespan of around 200 years in normal storage conditions. As the book’s topic is highly specialized, I would expect it to be stored in a place like the Harvard Depository, an isolated and controlled environment perfectly attuned to the preservation of books. Once placed within a library depository, the preservation of the book will be guaranteed for a very long time, with little need for upkeep. 

Although the preservation of the printed book raises less complex challenges in its transmission, I believe that the benefits of placing Fokine’s work within a video context outweigh the logistical difficulties. Fokine’s images are so intriguing because they attempt to capture the action of dance, and they do an imperfect job. In pairing Fokine’s imperfect transmission of his choreography alongside a video representation of its complexity and richness; the viewer will be able to come to their own understanding of the issues inherent in notating modern dance.