‘At the still point, there the dance is’

AO-sized bookmark for my memory

If Proust had his memory involuntarily kick-started by the smell of cake, mine was from an old poster from a flat that I lived in.

Recently I found the poster again in the collection of ephemera at the Alexander Turnbull Library, an AO-sized bookmark for my memory.

The poster was for a dance performance by the late Douglas Wright and his company for “Forever” and the memory revealed itself.

When I worked as a stage technician on the tour it offered a fascinating insight into the huge amount of hard work done by professional dancers and their support staff. It was not enough to be talented, they also had to be incredibly disciplined and hard working.

There was no “close enough for rock ‘n’ roll” attitude, they had to hit their marks every night or chaos ensued. The Douglas Wright Dance Company were exacting role models.

This is part of the value of ephemera collections ⁠— we are mostly not intellectually invested in them, they are by nature ephemeral, there to mark a gig or an event, an art ‘happening’, and then we move on.

A strong visual motif might keep them on the wall or fridge for longer then their intended use. They don’t accrue any cultural baggage as they move through time they are the baggage personified.

They generally are not reviewed or critiqued, but in that moment, they leap out at us and demand our attention and an 'extraordinary thing' happens to us as the glance becomes a stare.

Because the memories triggered by the poster are unmediated they are free to move me in time to the emotional states I was in nearly thirty years ago.

Researching with ephemera

The collection isn’t just about nostalgia though, if you are researching that band your mother played in or finishing off a PhD on New Zealand composer Douglas Lilburn, the Alexander Turnbull Library Ephemera Collection could be the perfect complement for your research.

It will help you establish timelines — when did your band do a record release gig at the Bodega? When was Lilburn’s Overture: Aotearoa first performed by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra?

A gig poster can either confirm who the support act was or it will prove our memory wrong and correct the faded recollection.

There is a fantastic poster in the collection advertising Stevie Wonder's 1981 concert supporting his Hotter than July tour. The full-colour Afrofuturistic cover of the album above the slightly more prosaic venue information for Athletic Park (possibly the least lamented venue in Wellington after the Winter Show Buildings).

Programmes and flyers

Programmes and flyers are also a large part of the Collection. This programme from 1935 for The Famous Arawa Māori Entertainers at the Peerless Hall in Rotorua, gives a good insight into a prosperous tourism industry looking for ‘authentic’ Māori entertainment.

It also showcases a group of musicians and dancers making a living by adapting local folk forms and colonisers favourites — Alfred Hill’s Waiata Poi and God Save the King sung in Māori are part of the evening’s entertainment.

Finding ephemera

Researchers, students, observers of the cultural milieu of Aotearoa can all gain something from the Ephemera Collection.

Search the catalogue or visit the Collection page to get started exploring ephemera from the past.

You will be pleasantly surprised by the results.

Ephemera Collection page