Footnotes: Eva Anderson's Baltimore Dance Theater Collection Comes to Langsdale

Eva Anderson's Baltimore Dance Theater, poster detail (photo collage), 1982

Anderson floating on air during rehearsal, 1977

Modern dance legend and Howard County resident Eva Anderson has bestowed many gifts in her illustrious life.  For more than 40 years, Anderson mesmerized audiences with her unique, graceful mode of expression by performing on stages around the world-- in places like Italy, Germany, and New York City. She refined her moves and informed her unique style with tireless study, and by immersing herself in modern dance, ballet, and with formal instruction in traditional African dance. Eventually Ms. Anderson brought her dynamism to Baltimore in 1975, where she shared her talents in choreography, teaching, and movement with the Baltimore Dance Theater as an instructor, and later as the artistic director. Dance students-- in Baltimore city, and later in Howard County-- recall being in thrall to Eva Anderson (“Ms. Eva”) who was in the vanguard of modern dance in Baltimore.

Special Collections Highlight: Baltimore Voices Company

Today we are highlighting a collection from the Library’s Special Collections Department (offices and Research Room can be found on the 4th Floor of the Learning Commons): the Baltimore Voices Company Collection. 

Formed in 1979, the Baltimore Voices Company (BVC) was the Baltimore Theatre Project's contribution to a larger, multi-faceted local history initiative known as the Baltimore Neighborhood Heritage Project (or BNHP, another archival collection held here at Langsdale Library). In order to create a theatrical production that was performed throughout the city in 1980, company members utilized existing BNHP oral histories and conducted their own tape-recorded interviews. The BVC's interviews were organized around specific themes, including labor, education, and community organizing. The collection at Langsdale contains oral history tapes, transcripts of interviews, biographical sketches, financial documents, publications, posters, photographs, brochures and more. For digital copies of some of the audio and documents, please see the digital exhibit.

<<Siobhan Hagan, AV Archivist