Alcine J. Wiltz papers
Collection
0341-SCPA
University of Maryland (UMD) Professor Emeritus Alcine Joseph Wiltz, III was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on March 16, 1941. He was a professor of dance at UMD from 1983 to 2008, and he was the chair of the department of dance there from 1983 to 2004. In 1976, he co-founded the Mid America Dance Company (MADCO), now known as the Modern American Dance Company. He was also the founding chair of the Department of Dance at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville. The Alcine Wiltz papers consist of physical and digital materials relating to Wiltz’s career, such as professional papers, reviews, photographs, and videos.
Copyright was not transferred to the University of Maryland with the physical gift of the papers. Alcine Wiltz or his publishers or heirs retain any copyright possessed in the collection. The University of Maryland Libraries is granted permission for the use in scholarly research by the Libraries’ patrons under fair use in Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act. Open for research with some exceptions. Certain files are restricted until January 1, 2094.
7 Linear Feet
103.43 Gigabytes
The Alcine J. Wiltz papers cover the period from 1953-2018; the bulk of the materials date from 1967-2014. Dates for born-digital materials reflect when the file was last modified. The collection consists mainly of professional papers, digital files, and ephemera, including interviews, programs, videos, photographs, and costumes related to Wiltz’s career in dance: his founding of MADCO, and as founding Director of the Dance Department at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, and his time as chair and professor at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Alcine J. Wiltz, III was born on March 16, 1941, in New Orleans, Louisiana. He received his BA in Choreographic Design from the University of Southwestern Louisiana in 1964. Wiltz worked closely with Anna Nassif while a master’s student and teaching assistant at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. After receiving his MFA in choreography and dance performance, Wiltz taught dance for one year at West Virginia University. He moved on to Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, where he was the founding Director of the Department of Dance, as well as Artist-In-Residence.
In 1976, Wiltz co-founded the Mid America Dance Company (MADCO) with Ross Winter, with an aim “to provide a space for professional dancers to live and work in the Midwest while providing entertaining performances and educational opportunities to the local community.” Together, they produced and choreographed pieces they took on road tours across the country.
In 1983, Wiltz began work as a Professor of Dance at the University of Maryland, College Park's School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies. Since then, he has served as Chair of the Dance Department and achieved Professor Emeritus status. During his time in academia, Wiltz also sat on the board of the American College Dance Association (formerly the American College Dance Festival Association). In addition, he held a choreography residency at the Jewish Community Center in Rockville, Maryland. In an attempt to understand his teaching methods and impact, Dr. Susan Kirchner of Towson undertook an ethnographic project about Wiltz, the process and final product of which are also found in this collection.
This collection is organized into three series:
This collection contains born-digital material that has been transferred from its original storage medium. Some files may be unreadable with current technology. To view these files, please make an appointment with the curator: Tel: 301.405.9220, Email: scpa@umd.edu
Received from Alcine Wiltz III in multiple gifts between February 2015 and July 2018.
In accordance with University policy concerning the processing of born digital material, a virus scan was performed before accession using ClamTK. Wiltz’s files were then imaged from a loaned external hard drive using a Windows instance of FTK Imager and transferred via DataAccessioner 1.1. Finally, the material was analyzed with Brunhilde—a python utility including a ClamAV virus check, file inventory (Siegfried), bulk extractor, and tsk_recover, a program which extracted the files from the disk image. The original file structure was maintained; duplicate files have not been deleted. Spelling errors in file names were also maintained. Some files may be unreadable with current technology. More on the UMD Born-Digital preservation policy can be found here: http://hdl.handle.net/1903/14745. The analog materials were rehoused in archival grade folders and boxes. Newspaper articles were copied onto acid-free paper. The files and items within them are in original order.
Part of the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library