Indigenous Dance Recordings and PNAAM
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Repertoires for Supporting Sovereignty: The Protocols for Native American Archival Materials and Dance Information in Vancouver by Carolyne Clare Master of Museum Studies, University of Toronto, 2010 B.A. (Hons.), Concordia University, 2008 Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences © Carolyne Clare 2020 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY Summer 2020 Copyright in this work rests with the author. Please ensure that any reproduction or re-use is done in accordance with the relevant national copyright legislation. Declaration of Committee Name: Carolyne Clare Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Repertoires for Supporting Sovereignty: Thesis title: The Protocols for Native American Archival Materials and Dance Information in Vancouver Committee: Chair: Clint Burnham Professor, English Peter Dickinson Supervisor Professor, Contemporary Arts Lisa Nathan Committee Member Associate Professor, Information University of British Columbia Allana Lindgren Committee Member Associate Professor, Theatre University of Victoria Dara Culhane Examiner Professor, Sociology and Anthropology Spencer Lilley External Examiner Associate Professor, Māori Knowledge Massey University ii Ethics Statement iii Abstract Repertoires for Supporting Sovereignty responds to the calls to action presented in the Protocols for Native American Archival Materials (PNAAM), which seeks to guide settler information communities towards building respectful relationships with Indigenous communities in order to enable Indigenous sovereignty over culture. My research focuses on how dance information, comprised of both archives and repertoires, is stewarded in Vancouver, and how such practices of stewardship can be transformed in order to respect PNAAM. To demonstrate how PNAAM might serve to inspire respectful information stewardship in Vancouver, I present two case studies that describe the transformative process I undertook with Vancouver-based collecting institutions. My research also engages with scholarly discussions at the cross-section of Information, Performance and Dance Studies. In particular, I draw upon these three fields of study to analyze the relationship of archives and repertoires, and I consider how this relationship continues to inform colonial cultural practices in Canada. I propose that PNAAM helps choreograph new affects, or emotions and embodied positions, that will help transform the stewardship of dance information in Vancouver. Although just a small action, PNAAM’s influence will help counteract the impact of genocide in Canada and bring about new repertoires in support of Indigenous sovereignty. Keywords: performance studies; dance studies; information studies; Indigenous sovereignty; settler colonialism; affect iv Dedication To Craig Welch, whose quiet presence, bright eyes and determined art making brought our family great joy and courage. v Acknowledgements This dissertation would not be without the immeasurable support of the SFU Childcare Society and the Developmental Disability Association of British Columbia. Lisa Moore, Collen Burke, Yadira Ramirez, Saaiqa Bhanji, I will be forever grateful for your grace, which held us together, and for your leadership which showed us how to celebrate and respect difference. Your lessons will be the ones that shake our worlds. Thank you to my colleagues in dance and neighbouring fields for being my village and inspiring me to keep working. Dr. Alana Gerecke, Dr. Jennifer Anne Scott, Kim O’Donell, Dr. Seika Boye, Andrea Glickman, Clotilde Orozco, Heather Dodge, Amanda Jackson, Emilie Roberts, Janet Lee, Margaret Gales and Dr. Julia Ferrari: thank you for egging me on. I am grateful to all the arts workers and their allies who have dedicated themselves to respectfully providing access to culture. Claire Asquith Finnegan, Pamela Tagle, Karen Jamieson, Judith Marcuse, Melanie Hardbattle, Melissa Salrin, Amy Bowring, Miriam Adams, Norton Owen, Patsy Gay, Dereck Mack, Anna Duek, Phillip Szporer, Barbara Cohen-Stratyner and Vincent Warren, your enthusiasm continues to light my way. I have been awed by the humility and strength of the work of members of SFU’s Department of English and associated units at the university. Professors Christine Kim, Sophie McCall, Dara Culhane, Michelle Levy and the ever-gracious Peter Dickinson, thank you for your gentle and astute guidance. I am also grateful to my teachers at the UBC iSchool, Amy Perreault, Sara Dupont, and Professor Lisa Nathan; your generosity has changed me. I am thankful for the support I received from a Vanier Canadian Graduate Scholarship and Simon Fraser University, including an SFU Community Engagement Initiative grant, which allowed me to work with arts organizations to address their needs in support of dancers. To the Mellon School of Theatre and Performance Research at Harvard University and the Gatherings Partnership, thank you for giving me a community of (semi-imaginary) cheerleaders and interlocuters. A special thanks goes to Professors Stephen Johnson, Allana Lindgren and Sasha Kovacs, for including me, with unyielding kindness, in the conversation. vi To my mother and father, from nervous coughs to dancing in the wings, your enthusiasm was always felt. To my sister, Professor Stephanie Clare, thank you for having always listened, cared and given value to my creativity. May our little ones always be great friends. My deepest thanks go to my partner, Dr. James Gray-Donald, whose patience, joy, humour, humble confidence, diligence, and dish-washing skills allowed me to get this done and brought a new rhythm to my life. And to our sassy and endlessly energetic girls, thank you for dancing with me in the kitchen, for allowing me to wean you with ice cream and for finally sleeping through the night. The magnitude of your compassion and insight greatly surpasses the size of your tiny selves, and that discrepancy brings to light great possibilities for the future. vii Table of Contents Declaration of Committee .................................................................................................. ii Ethics Statement ...............................................................................................................iii Abstract ............................................................................................................................ iv Dedication ......................................................................................................................... v Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... vi Table of Contents ............................................................................................................ viii List of Acronyms ................................................................................................................ x Chapter 1. Introduction ................................................................................................ 1 Feeling Settled in the Archive ........................................................................................... 1 Caveats and Definitions .................................................................................................... 6 Dissertation Outline and Argument ................................................................................. 17 Political Positionality Statement ...................................................................................... 22 Chapter 2. Stewardship of Dance Information in Vancouver ................................. 25 Transforming Information Studies ................................................................................... 26 Supporting the Transformation of Information Theory and Practice ............................... 33 Developing the Protocols for Native American Archival Materials .................................. 35 Beginning to Enact PNAAM in British Columbia ............................................................. 42 Locating Dance Records in Vancouver: Museum, Archives and Dance Organizations .. 46 Creating and Altering Colonial Dance Collections: Museums ......................................... 48 Creating and Altering Colonial Dance Collections: Archival Organizations .................... 54 Creating and Altering Colonial Dance Collections: Dance Organizations ....................... 61 Production of Information by Settler Dance Organizations ............................................. 65 Vancouver-Based Dance Organization’s Information Management Challenges ............ 67 Conclusion: The Relevance of PNAAM to Vancouver-based Dance Organizations ....... 70 Chapter 3. Uncomfortable Strategies for Unsettling Research on Dance Information .......................................................................................................... 71 Theories of Emergence in Performance Studies and Dance Studies ............................. 72 The Tools of Performance, Dance Studies and Colonialism ........................................... 75 Recent Critiques of Performance and Dance Studies ..................................................... 77 Unsettling Theories of Archives Within Performance and Dance Studies ...................... 81 Research and the Residential School History and Dialogue Centre ............................... 86 Chapter 4. PNAAM and the Judith Marcuse Fonds ................................................ 94 Institutional Change