[UPDATED] Save the Leipzig Dance Archive!

For the reason of saving money the famous Leipzig Tanzarchiv is at the danger of being destroyed.

Raise your voice and tell the saxonian Minister, that the archive has high importance within the dancing community.
Send a protest letter to

Staatsministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst
Staatsministerin Prof. Sabine von Schorlemer
Postfach 10 09 20
01079 Dresden
Germany

Join also the Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_208613375823919&ap=1

Rettung des Tanzarchivs Leipzig - Aktivitäten in Deutschland
http://www.creanc.com/TanzarchivLeipzig/tanzarchiv-leipzig_taenzer-helfe...

Updates by Markus Lehner by 22.04.2011

Dear all,

here are some news regarding the planned destruction of the Tanzarchiv Leipzig (for those, who are not informed yet: The Saxonian government has decided to give up the Tanzarchiv and to transfer the archive material to the University of Leipzig. The university, however, has declared, that they can't store all of it, so some material will be distributed to several depots and the rest will be littered!).
After spending an afternoon calling the Ministry of art and science of Saxonia by telephone, I finally got through to a certain Mrs. Wagner, who seems to be in charge of the affair:
Her answer was:

• Since 1st January, the Tanzarchiv belongs to the University of Leipzig, thus the ministry is no longer responsible for it (???)
• Years ago, the university had signed a contract with the ministry, that they would keep up the Tanzarchiv. Mrs. Wagner showed some anger about the university, but could not tell, what kind of influence the ministry is planning to use to make the university keep the contract.

Then she passed me on to the press office for more information. There I was told, that so far no archive material has been thrown away.

• The statement of the university, that they were not able to store the material, is seen as an attempt to squeeze more money out of the ministry, than already granted for this project.
• The transfer of the archive has been initiated to save costs, since there seems to be very little public interest (regarding apparently the number of visitors) in this institution.
• The ministry has requested a statement of the university about their exact plans regarding the archive.

The officer supposed that a letter of concern to the rector of the university might not be useless.

During the last days I got other alarming news from Sylvia Hartung, a dance scholar near Leipzig, who has close contacts to the Tanzarchiv:

• Since 1st April they have already started transferring material from the archive to the university.<(li>
• So far no material has been destroyed, this, however, is not due to the ministry, but to a brave librarian, who is risking her job by this action.
• The transfer seems to be handled by the university in an extremely careless manner.

As far as I know, some of you have already written letters of protest to the ministry, but it seems essential to increase public pressure. Therefore I would like to ask you to send letters to both the ministry and the University of Leipzig. It is absolutely urgent!
Here are the addresses (unfortunately the postal address, Diana Cruickshank mailed, is not correct, and I have passed it on unchecked, my sincere apologies!):

Staatsministerin Frau Prof. Sabine von Schorlemer
Staatsministerium für Kunst und Wissenschaft
Postfach 100920
D-01079 Dresden
Email: presse@smwk.sachsen.de

Rektorin Frau Prof. Beate Schücking
Universität Leipzig
Ritterstrasse 26
D-04109 Leipzig
Email: rektorin@uni-leipzig.de

It would also be great, if you could mail a copy of these letters (and even the ones you have already sent) to Sylvia Hartung, email: sy.hartung@t-online.de. She will publish the letters on her homepage http://www.creanc.com/TanzarchivLeipzig/tanzarchiv-leipzig_taenzer-helfe...
Thus we hope to bundle the international response in order show the international importance of the Tanzarchiv Leipzig to other organisations, like the UNESCO, the national government, the press etc...

Many, many thanks for your help!
Markus Lehner