Dancing at the V&A

Focusing primarily on the design for dance collections this illustrated presentation will discuss the range of material held at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. For historical reasons this is to be found between three departments: - within the Performance Collection (previously held by the V&A's branch the Theatre Museum), within the Word and Image collections and in the National Art Library. While the V&A's collection is undoubtably stronger in its holdings of C19th and C20th designs - it began its collections of theatrical material from the early C20th - there is some fascinating earlier material including designs from the French Ballet de Cour. Mention will be made of how the V&A's collection developed - indeed a 1922 exhibition of theatre designs and models was the catalyst for its acquisition of the Gabrielle Enthoven Collection. While it is currently frustrating that the dance material held by the Department of Performance, Furniture, Textiles and Fashion is inaccessible as it is moving across London to the new research centre, Storehouse, at Stratford East London this is an opportunity to learn more about the wealth of what may be seen from 2024. 

Jane Pritchard is curator of dance for the Victoria and Albert Museum where she co-curated Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes, 1909-1929 and edited the accompanying book. Previously she was archivist for Rambert Dance Company and English National Ballet and created the Contemporary Dance Trust Archive. Her other exhibitions include Les Ballets 1933, Rambert Dance Company at 75, A Flash of Light: The Dance Photography of Chris Nash, Anthony Crickmay: Photographing People and Performance and Hand in Glove, a performed costume exhibition of the work of Lea Anderson and currently On Point: The Royal Academy of Dance at 100. She has curated seasons of dance films, presented on radio and contributed to numerous publications, including the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, The Annual Register, Dance Chronicle, Dance Research, and The Dancing Times and lectured internationally. She was a recipient of a Churchill Travel Fellowship and the Anthony Denning Research Award. She was awarded an MBE for services tot he arts in the 2014 New Year's Honours.