Welcome to Ephemera Speaks to Dance: A Journey Through the Collection of Sunil Kothari. This exhibit explores the representation of Indian dance, both in India and in the diaspora, using ephemera as the main source of material. The type of ephemera in the collection is vast, including brochures, performance tickets, news clippings, government documents, and invitations. While each piece of ephemera alone may appear insubstantial, cumulatively they tell a story of the impact of dance in India and abroad. The story which will be told today is coming from my own position as a recent college graduate with a passion for International Relations and Ethnomusicology, as well as being a dancer and pianist. My love for the arts and politics has led me to question how dance can disseminate and affirm a country’s culture and traditions both within the country and externally. This interest drew me towards seven files marked “Diaspora” and three files labeled “Indian Artists Performing Abroad in Festivals,” which formed the core of my project. In this exhibition, diaspora is used to describe Indian communities outside of India. Thus, the countries largely represented in the files are from diasporic communities in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and a variety of Southeast Asia countries. The materials in these files, as is the case with any collection, reflect the collector, and thus are not the basis for generalization, but need to be seen within the lens of the personality – Sunil Kothari in this case. Press the video in the top right corner to learn more about the archive.