In a post last month (Nothing Lasts Forever) I reported that a film I made a million years, Tango Octogenario, was suddenly no longer online. I saw it as proof that even in the digital realm, despite all our efforts, nothing last forever. Some people found this a bit depressing. Myself included.
About a week after realizing that it had been taken down from the Reel New York’s website (Channel Thirteen, NYC’s PBS station), I received an email from the ReelDance Moving Image Collection (MIC), an archive curated and housed in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Repository at the University of New South Wales, Australia. It seems they went ahead and archived Tango Octogenario, so you can once again watch it online. From their website:
This unique curated archive of works by more than 200 renowned and emerging artists tracks the development of dance on screen as an art form over the past thirteen years in Australia and internationally. Artists include Cobie Orger, Kate Murphy, Shona McCullagh, Paul Zivkovich, Paul McNeill, La Ribot, Les Ballets C de la B, Thierry de Mey, Julie-Anne Long, Sean O’Brien, Jan Verbeek, Jonathan Burrows, Ballet Russes, Heidrun Lohr, Nalina Wait, Sue Healey, Meg Stuart and Lucy Guerin.
The archive will provide resources for teaching, research and artistic development in dance, an art form that is notoriously difficult to pin down as an object of study. And amongst practices where dance and the moving image co-exist, the collection documents developments in single-screen work across a crucial historical period. UNSW is a benchmark institution of cultural research and learning, and, with a strong representation of academics and curricula in both dance and film studies, the University provides the ideal future home for the collection.
Forever is a long time, and I don’t expect anything I do to last that long. But I’m very glad that the film has found life again online.
Thank you, Dr. Erin Brannigan, everyone at ReelDance Moving Image Collection, and UNSW.