We bring focus and direction to our partners’ projects by highlighting three key areas. First, we identify their access and storage/space issues, noting items in the archive that are at risk. Next, we identify historical assets that enable the organization to tell their complete story from founding to present. Lastly, we identify assets that are needed immediately for marketing, fundraising, instruction, and the restaging of choreographic works. These steps make the challenge of preserving and presenting a collection less daunting.

To build the most accurate chronology for the digital archive, we digitize performance programs and Playbills™, which supply the who, what, where, and when, becoming the foundational source of data for a CD DigitalVault™. This data includes the date, performance works, artists, choreographer, composer, costume, scenic and lighting designers, and donors.

Traditionally, this metadata is manually typed into a database, a process that can take more than 120 minutes per program. CD has developed an AI-based software application called CD SmartCapture™ that makes the process 15 to 20 times faster, extracting keywords from digitized programs to create metadata for the collection rapidly and accurately. CD SmartCapture lifts and populates the data into the CD DigitalVault with one click. We train our partners to operate the CD DigitalVault so materials can be quickly accessed, utilized, and added to when needed. We also hire and train interns to handle archival materials, digitize content, and provide quality assurance of metadata to corresponding assets. Additional interns from local colleges will be hired under this grant.

By using the CD DigitalVault, dancers, choreographers, fundraising and marketing staff, teachers, historians, and balletomanes worldwide gain access to important archival materials, giving all the opportunity to explore each institution’s legacy.