Metadata for intangible cultural heritage: the case of folk dances
Date Issued
January 2018
DOI
10.5220/0006760906340645
Abstract
It is a fact that states and international organizations are trying to protect and promote intangible cultural
heritage. According to UNESCO intangible cultural heritage includes traditions or living expressions
inherited from our ancestors and passed on to our descendants. Folk dances are an important part of our
intangible cultural heritage, so there is a need to promote and protect them to inherit to the next generations.
Beyond digitization of various elements of the dance, proper documentation requires to analyse them (either
manually or automatically) and describe all important elements using appropriate metadata. However,
although different metadata schemas have been defined in the area of cultural heritage, most are suitable only
for tangible heritage, and cannot properly describe elements of intangible cultural heritage. The present study
proposes a new metadata schema for describing different elements of folk dance.
heritage. According to UNESCO intangible cultural heritage includes traditions or living expressions
inherited from our ancestors and passed on to our descendants. Folk dances are an important part of our
intangible cultural heritage, so there is a need to promote and protect them to inherit to the next generations.
Beyond digitization of various elements of the dance, proper documentation requires to analyse them (either
manually or automatically) and describe all important elements using appropriate metadata. However,
although different metadata schemas have been defined in the area of cultural heritage, most are suitable only
for tangible heritage, and cannot properly describe elements of intangible cultural heritage. The present study
proposes a new metadata schema for describing different elements of folk dance.