Congress on Research in Dance records
Collection
0105-SCPA
Convened in October of 1964, The Congress on Research in Dance (CORD) was an international community of dance researchers, scholars, teachers, and performers who sought to encourage, facilitate and disseminate dance scholarship. The organization promoted a discursive approach to researching and understanding dance as more than just art and expression, but the value of the form as a manifestation of universal communication, resonant ideas, and cultural commodity. In 2017, CORD was merged with the Society of Dance History Scholars to form a new entity, the Dance Studies Association (DSA).
The CORD records cover the period from 1964 to 1999; the bulk of the materials date from 1975 to 1999. The records consist of founding documents, bylaws, Board and member correspondence, meeting minutes, published volumes of CORD’s own Dance Research Journal, an assortment of specially published CORD issues devoted to specific topics, conference materials, scholarly papers submitted to the conferences, newsletters, office materials, and financial documents.
The collection is open for research use. Materials from this collection must be used in the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library's Irving and Margery Morgan Lowens Special Collections Room during SCPA’s operating hours. Please contact the curator for an appointment or if you have questions related to digital access of the materials.
Copyright was not transferred to the University of Maryland with the gift of any copyrighted materials. All rights remain with the creators and rights holders. 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.
To inquire about duplication of materials for research or for publication, please contact SCPA’s curator.
31.50 Linear Feet
The Congress on Research in Dance records cover the period from 1964 to 1999; the bulk of the materials date from 1975 to 1999. The collection consists of founding documents, bylaws, Board and member correspondence, meeting minutes, published volumes of CORD’s own Dance Research Journal, an assortment of specially published CORD issues devoted to specific topics, conference materials, scholarly papers submitted to the conferences, newsletters, office materials, and financial documents.
Officers primarily created much of the materials, including board of directors, the treasurer, the New York office staff and the corresponding secretaries. The many papers submitted to the various conferences originate from international dance scholars. Copies of publications (journals, conference proceedings, and special issues) are comprised of still more international dance scholars as well as prominent CORD members.
In October 1964, Esther Jackson and Kathryn Bloom (then the Director of the Arts & Humanities Branch of the US Office of Education), realized their shared concern for the preservation and dissemination of the burgeoning amount of scholarship they saw in dance. They formed a small steering committee comprised mainly of fellow American dance scholars in early 1965, and convened the first membership meeting in April of that year where it was decided that the then-called Committee on Research in Dance in the State of New York should become a permanent entity. By October 1965, a new, 15-person steering committee had been elected and their first planning meeting at New York University was held.
By 1969, the Committee on Research in Dance in the State of New York was fully incorporated, housed at New York University, and allowed for national individual and institutional membership. In 1977, the name was changed to the Congress on Research in Dance (CORD). Their initial focus was to encourage academic discourse between dance scholars in every corner of the US. As such, CORD spent its first few years collecting dialogue and facilitating the national discussion on dance. Over time, those contributing to the conversation became increasingly international with input from individual, institutional, and library members around the world. Examples of topics addressed in CORD's publications include but are not limited to: dance techniques, choreography, performance, history, anthropology, education, therapy, phenomenology and other areas of philosophy, semiotics, feminist criticism and theory, somatics, notation systems, kinesiology, dance criticism, and dance medicine.
CORD publisheed a peer-reviewed scholarly journal; The Dance Research Journal, as well as collections of academic papers submitted to their annual conference proceedings, and occasionally, special issues focusing on specific dance topics such as notation, marginalized or historical forms and artist biographies.
In 2017, CORD was merged with the Society of Dance History Scholars to form a new entity, the Dance Studies Association (DSA).
This collection is organized into eight series.
The original gift by CORD was made via a deed of gift in 2011. The collection was transferred to UMD in February 2012 from the Library of Congress storage facility in Lanham, Maryland, where it was on deposit.
Part of the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library