David Vaughan (dance archivist)

David Vaughan (born May 17, 1924, London) is a dance archivist, historian and critic. He was the archivist of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company from 1976 until the company was disbanded in 2012. In his long career, Vaughan has been a dancer, choreographer, actor and singer whose work has been seen in London, Paris, and in New York, both on- and off-Broadway, as well as in regional theatres across the United States, in cabarets, on television and on film. Vaughan's ballet choreography was used in Stanley Kubrick's 1955 film Killer's Kiss, danced by Kubrick's wife at the time, ballerina Ruth Sobotka. He has worked with both modern dance and ballet companies.

Vaughan came to the New York City from England in 1950 to study at the School of American Ballet, where he first met Merce Cunningham, who briefly taught there. Vaughan began studying with Cunningham in the mid-1950s, and became the administrator when Cunningham opened his own studio, after which he served in various staff capacities with the company. An interest in collecting documentation to make a chronology of Cunningham's works led to being formally made the company's achivist in 1976.

As an author, Vaughan has written The Royal Ballet at Convent Garden,Merce Cunningham: Fifty Years, and Frederick Ashton and His Ballets, and is the co-editor with Mary Clarke of The Encyclopedia of Dance and Ballet.

In 2000 Vaughan received the Congress on Research in Dance (CORD) Award for Outstanding Leadership in Dance Research, and in 2001 a Bessie Award for sustained achievement.Dance Magazine announced in October 2015 that Vaughan was one of that year's recipients of the Dance Magazine Awards, which were presented on December 7.

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