Leslie Hansen Kopp, a dance and music archivist, died of metastatic breast cancer on May 27, 2006, in New York City. 

 

She was born in Newport News, Va. on August 2, 1952.  She received her bachelor’s degree from East Carolina University in 1974 and a master’s degree in musicology from Temple University.  With her colleague Michael Scherker, she was the co-founder and director of Preserve, Inc., an organization dedicated to the preservation of the records of dance and other performing arts.  Her career also included work for the Dia Art Foundation, the Dance Notation Bureau, the Metropolitan Museum’s Department of Musical Instruments, the New York State Historical Documents Inventory, the George Balanchine Foundation, and The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.  She was the editor of Dance Archives: A Practical Manual for Documenting and Preserving the Ephemeral Art (1995).  At the time of her death she was at work on a biography of one of her mentors, the musicologist and musical instrument curator Emanuel Winternitz.

 

Leslie will be remembered for her exuberant sense of humor, which she never lost, even in illness:  at the 2005 SAA annual meeting reception in New Orleans, her uproarious and irreverent account of her cancer surgery reduced her colleagues to tears – of laughter. She will also be remembered for the delight she took in her work, whatever she was doing.  At Archivists Round Table meetings and MARAC workshops, she donned leotards and taught her colleagues how to stretch, relax and safely lift heavy record center cartons, and how to record and follow the Labanotation system of dance notation. 

 

Leslie loved baseball, children, New York City, her friends and colleagues, cats, Blackadder, good food and wine, and all the lively arts.  Most of all, she adored her daughter Hanna, who brought much joy to her life.  In addition to Hanna, she is survived by her partner, Carolynn Jennings.

 

Memorial contributions may be made to the Department of Musical Instruments, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 Fifth Avenue, NY, NY 10028-0198, 212-570-3919 or the Jacob Perlow Hospice, c/o Continuum Hospice Care, 1775 Broadway, Ste. 300, NY, NY 10019, 212-649-5526.