at BAM in 1983
(Photo courtesy of BAM)
BAM has announced plans to establish the BAM Hamm Archive Center, which will house the performing arts institution’s archival holdings, dating back to 1857.
It will be located on the ground floor of the Forté building in Brooklyn, which has been purchased with a gift from BAM board member Charles J. Hamm and his wife Irene F. Hamm.
The Center, to begin construction in early 2011, will house a collection of materials that document BAM’s history, including photographs, programs, posters, articles, and brochures. It will also coordinate tours of BAM, organize archival exhibits in conjunction with BAM programming, and oversee projects of institutional importance such as oral histories.
Among the historic figures whose work and involvement with BAM is documented by these materials are artists such as Sarah Bernhardt, Enrico Caruso, Isadora Duncan, Edwin and John Wilkes Booth, Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Morgan Freeman, and Philip Glass, as well as others, including Booker T. Washington, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Frederick Douglass.
The establishment of the BAM Hamm Archive Center is part of the institution’s Next Stage Campaign, which also includes the the construction of the Richard B. Fisher
Building, a 250-seat theater and community-use facility.
For further information, visit: www.bam.org.
