But every company that chooses to dance on after the death of its founder will face the prickly issue of maintaining its repertoire without the creator's oversight. Kriegsman notes that as archival means such as written notation and film have become better established, the situation is not as dire as predicted. And the stakes are high. As Kriegsman knows, anyone interested in preserving dance is racing against time. The tremendous outpouring of boundary-breaking choreography in the past 50 years or more will be difficult to see in the next 50.
Time is the choreographer's worst enemy, just as it is the dancer's.
Time weakens muscles and fogs memories. Which is bad news when, in fact, the only way to guarantee the existence of a piece is to dance it. Certainly, every year innumerable works fall out of repertory, and creep closer and closer to oblivion each season they are not revived. Every year dancers and choreographers die, in many cases taking with them the secret codes to unlock their steps for posterity. Or, as with the Graham Center, issues of succession and inheritance get in the way of public viewing of the work.