We’re taking a break for the rest of March on the Archive Project. I have to return to Los Angeles, where I live, for some other commitments, and Eiko & Koma are performing in San Francisco at the Yerba Buena. In the meantime, I thought I’d post on some aspects of the archive inventory process that I neglected to write about as they happened.

The day before Eiko left town, she and Patsy sat down to go through the nineteen external hard drives that contain raw footage, edited performances, and digitized archival materials. Together they discovered footage of Trilogy and Nurse’s Song that Eiko didn’t remember they had.

As Patsy scrambled to record the contents of each hard drive, it quickly became clear that archival material was mixed in with files that were actively being edited. We all agreed that there was an urgent need to both isolate the archival files on separate drives, and to ensure that there was a back up of these important materials. The Dance Heritage Coalition ordered us two 3T RAID 1 drives (which basically means that there are two mirrored drives within each drive) that will help us accomplish both of those goals.

Once the RAID 1 drives arrived, Patsy and I met with DHC Fellow, Katya Schapiro, to learn more about standards for creating digital archives. Is there a specific process for transferring files? What are the naming conventions? As we transfer materials, should we be flagging files that exist only in formats that are in danger of becoming obsolete? When we come back together in April, we’ll have all our questions answered, and will proceed with the data transfer.

-Rosemary Candelario