Paul Taylor Dance Company

Preserving Dance: Winthrop documents Paul Taylor’s artistry and established the PTDC Archives with an online presence

Choreographer Paul Taylor is an icon of modern dance. Since he founded the Paul Taylor Dance Company in 1954, he has choreographed more than 135 dances, winning public and critical acclaim along the way. The PTDC Archive was created in 1992 as part of a Repertory Preservation Project (RPP), a groundbreaking effort to capture these dances for posterity and to supplement them by re-staging and filming 65 of Taylor’s dances. Engaging Winthrop to create, process, and manage the archive, the Paul Taylor Dance Company made a long-term commitment to preserve and document the history of Taylor’s choreography and of the company itself, and with them a chapter in the story of American dance history.

The PTDC Archive:

Celebrates Taylor’s creative legacy and serves as a resource for dancers and staff of the company, students, the public, authors, and journalists
Provides information about and protection for Taylor’s choreography and related rights
Serves as a model for the other dance companies that have yet to realize, or are only now realizing, the wealth of their past and the importance of preserving it

Along the way, Winthrop has supported licensing of Taylor’s work to other companies, publicity and marketing initiatives, television programs, and a 50th anniversary book, Dancemaker at Work. Most recently, a National Historical Publications and Records Commission grant-funded project in 2011 added an online finding aid.

For more information, visit www.ptdc.or g