NDT releases archive to Google Arts & Culture in honour of its 60th anniversary.

The NDT company at Koningsstraat in 1965
© Fotobureau-Stokvis

On 2nd September the Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT) published a large part of its archive on Google Arts & Culture. Through this unique collaboration, NDT makes its vast collection of visual material accessible to the public.

The rich NDT archive has been conserved and managed with great care over the past sixty years, but has only recently been fully digitized. Video recordings of ballets, trailers, photos, but also program books, posters and printed matter, associated texts, and other valuable material result in a digital archive that entails more than 600 ballets. On Google Arts & Culture, NDT exhibits a selection of more than 3,000 digital archive items ranging from film clips and photography, posters and program books.

As a dance company, how do you deal with images? How do you show these archive items in an integrated way, and how do you present it as a layered collection with a comprehensive story and not just a collection of material?

Google Arts & Culture offered an answer to these questions. Unlike other digital databases, this platform offers the possibility to create online exhibitions with pieces from the archive that highlight NDT’s countless stories in a unique way. In addition to world-renowned institutions such as the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, The National Gallery in London and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, NDT is the first dance company in the world to make its archive publicly accessible on such a large scale.  2nd September 2019

Click here to access the archive