Introduction

Dance flickers 'at the vanishing point': the movement is performed and viewed, but cannot be fixed in time or memory. Preservation involves memory as well as artistic choice, interpretation, cultural continuity and flexibility, and the realities of dealing with institutions, individuals, communities, documentation, and artifacts. It is a challenging endeavor-rich with possibilities for generating new knowledge and even new art from the perspectives of both embodied memory and intellectual history. Dance in academe, which depends on institutions like the New York Public Library's Dance Collection, plays an important role in preservation of the art's history. Trinity Laban is one such academic center that values not only new dance, but dances of history. It is not only the individual artist who springs across divides in time and space, with the fluid medium of dance serving as their bridge; global migration or diaspora has also shaped dance practice and preservation.