Tina Ramírez Ballet Hispánico Papers

During the initial survey of the collection, it appeared that some of the folders originally housing the collection’s materials were damaging the document boxes that they were donated in. It was decided then that those materials along with other loose materials in the collection would be refoldered with their original names transferred to limit damage to the materials. In a few instances, the folder titles were changed only in cases where the names clearly did not relate to the materials contained within the folder.

While refoldering, the materials were also rehoused in hollinger boxes to replace the damaged document boxes. The materials were kept together physically as much as possible to attempt to preserve original order. In this process, however, items from one larger document box could not be fit into one hollinger, so in those cases, the materials were moved in their existing order into hollinger boxes with their division being dictated by space concerns of the hollinger.

Some materials such as the Tito Puentes record, oversized headshots of Tina Ramírez, a Proclamation from Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, and oversized diagrams of dance steps were moved into oversized boxes (OS 1 and OS 3) or flat files (OS 2). This move was done to prevent additional damage as they were actively being damaged due to their insufficiently sized containers.

To help researchers and others to locate the materials and establish intellectual control, the collection has been divided into three main series, “Personal”, “Ballet Hispánico”, and “Educational Materials”. A large portion of the collection consists of photographs, correspondence, news clippings, and other materials documenting Ramírez’s early days as a professional dancer and continuing through her almost forty year tenure as artistic director at Ballet Hispánico.

From her time as an artistic director and dance educator, Ramírez was involved in the operations of organizations such as the Ballet Hispánico as well as the New 42nd Street, Inc, and to a lesser extent, Jacob’s Pillow. Institutional records such as meeting agendas and minutes, correspondence, and guidelines as well as photographs of students and their performances from the time were described as “Personal”, and then further categorized as the sub-series “Organization”.

And lastly, throughout the collection, there are notes taken by Ramírez regarding dance instruction as well as materials collected by her regarding dance pedagogy, Latin American and Spanish cultural dance traditions, plays, musical scores, and other materials. Since these materials largely have to do with her research into performance as well as her insight and notes regarding dance instruction these materials have been described as the series, Educational Materials.

These three series encapsulate the majority of the materials in the collection and can provide a basic level of intellectual control. Due to the fact that minimal physical rearrangement was undertaken, some folders may contain individual items that belong to different series. For instances like these, the series description for the folder was ultimately chosen to reflect the thematic content of the majority of the items. While not ideal, this approach will hopefully steer researchers in the right direction while maintaining the original order of the materials throughout the collection.