Repertoires for supporting sovereignty: The protocols for Native American archival materials and dance information in Vancouver

Repertoires for Supporting Sovereignty responds to the calls to action presented in the Protocols for Native American Archival Materials (PNAAM), which seeks to guide settler information communities towards building respectful relationships with Indigenous communities in order to enable Indigenous sovereignty over culture. My research focuses on how dance information, comprised of both archives and repertoires, is stewarded in Vancouver, and how such practices of stewardship can be transformed in order to respect PNAAM. To demonstrate how PNAAM might serve to inspire respectful information stewardship in Vancouver, I present two case studies that describe the transformative process I undertook with Vancouver-based collecting institutions. My research also engages with scholarly discussions at the cross-section of Information, Performance and Dance Studies. In particular, I draw upon these three fields of study to analyze the relationship of archives and repertoires, and I consider how this relationship continues to inform colonial cultural practices in Canada. I propose that PNAAM helps choreograph new affects, or emotions and embodied positions, that will help transform the stewardship of dance information in Vancouver. Although just a small action, PNAAM’s influence will help counteract the impact of genocide in Canada and bring about new repertoires in support of Indigenous sovereignty.