NY Public Library's Moving Image Specialist Arlene Yu on Dance as 'Useful Art'

BroadwayWorld.com continues our exclusive content series, in collaboration with The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, which delves into the library's unparalleled archives, and resources. Below, check out a piece by Arlene Yu, Moving Image Specialist for the Jerome Robbins Dance Division for The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts on Kiss Me, Kate and Dance as a "Useful Art".

"Dear Miss Hutchinson," the letter begins,

...I was very much interested in an article by John Martin entitled "They Score a Dance as Others Do Music" which appeared in the New York Times Magazine, issue of July 2, 1950.

It occurred to me to inquire whether you had at all considered the possibility of copyrighting the scores of new ballets as expressed by the dance notation explained in the article. It seems to me conceivable that by copyrighting such a score, not only could the notation as expressed be protected against unauthorized reproduction but also, and more importantly, the copyright might protect the dance itself against performance except when authorized by the proprietor of the copyright."

The letter, dated July 19, 1950, was from Richard S. MacCarteney, the Chief of the Reference Division of the U.S. Copyright Office. "Miss Hutchinson" was Ann Hutchinson, later Hutchinson Guest, one of the leading authorities on dance notation, and more specifically, Labanotation. Two years later, the choreography by Hanya Holm for the Cole Porter musical Kiss Me, Kate became the first dance work ever accepted for copyright registration in the United States.

"Choreography is Copyrighted for the First Time," trumpeted the New York Herald Tribune, calling the registration an "epoch-making event in the dance field." Quoting attorney Arnold Weissberger, the Herald Tribune explained the significance of the Copyright Office's acceptance of Kiss Me, Kate as the first "?recognition of a choreographic work as an independent creation.'" By November 1953, the Copyright Office had issued Circular No. 51, specifically covering the copyright of choreographic works as "dramatic or dramatico-musical compositions."

Holm followed that first registration with one in 1957 for her next big Broadway gig, My Fair Lady, for which she received a Tony nomination. Her applications and her role in later discussions of the copyright status of choreographic works are documented in her collection in the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Although choreography would still not be fully recognized as copyrightable - except as a type of dramatic work - until the Copyright Act of 1976, the 1952 registration of Kiss Me, Kate's choreography marked an important step in the acceptance of dance as a serious art form, separate from theater and music. As John Martin pointed out in the New York Times, while licensing practices were in place to compensate the composer, lyricist, and bookwriter,

"When Broadway musicals are released for stock, it is not infrequent for a summer theatre to engage as choreographer some member of the original dance company to restage the dances after the manner of the original production. For this, the original choreographer receives neither credit nor royalties."

Dancemakers such as George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, and Agnes de Mille had been credited as "choreographers" before Kiss Me, Kate, but the official recognition of Holm's ownership of her choreography meant that for the first time there was some legal protection for it (beyond common law practices). "From now on," proclaimed Dance Observer, "...piracy in the dance will not only be a matter of ethics; it will be a matter of law."

Hanya Holm was perhaps uniquely prepared for her pioneering role in copyrighting choreography. The only one of the "big four" founders of modern dance not born in the U.S., she grew up in Germany and was influenced by her studies in Dalcroze Eurhythmics as well as by her mentor, Mary Wigman, who had studied with Rudolf Laban, the creator of Labanotation. Holm had helped establish the Mary Wigman school in the U.S., and later developed her own teaching program and school, notable for its emphasis on improvisation and its incorporation of Labanotation. She was an early supporter of the Dance Notation Bureau, providing the DNB with its first official address at her studio, and including her studio in syndicated news stories on the DNB in the early 1940s. Crucially for the history of choreography and copyright, she hired the DNB to notate her choreography for Kiss Me, Kate in June 1950.

Years of work by the DNB to record important works, years of coverage in the press from DNB supporters such as dance critic John Martin about the growing use of Labanotation, and years of work by both the DNB and Holm in teaching Labanotation to as many people as possible all came together when MacCarteney, a dance-loving librarian in the Copyright Office, wrote to Hutchinson to suggest that a notated dance score might be accepted for copyright registration. Holm's Kiss Me, Kate was perhaps the perfect candidate for acceptance, as the Copyright Office would presumably have been familiar with the musical and thus accepted that the choreography was a "dramatic" composition.

Even The New York Public Library got in on the act. At the suggestion of Genevieve Oswald, the Dance Division's founding curator, the Library contacted the Copyright Office to confirm that submissions could be made via microfilm, which was far cheaper to produce than paper copies. Holm's 400-plus page Labanotation for Kiss Me, Kate was then microfilmed at the Library, and arrived at the Copyright Office in a neat little package. One by one, the barriers to recognizing choreography as a "useful art" worthy of copyright protection - the lack of a widely used notation to "fix" works in a tangible format, the argument that dance did not tell a story, the high cost of producing and copying a dance score to submit for copyright registration - fell before the determined efforts of choreographers, notators, journalists, and librarians.