New Delhi, July 18 (IANS) The National Museum of Performing Arts, a new archive to preserve and showcase documentary material in possession of the Sangeet Natak Akademi (SNA), will open next month with two galleries.

"The galleries will exhibit archival material comprising rare musical instruments, masks and puppets," Shanta Serbjeet Singh, vice chairperson of the Sangeet Natak Akademi, told IANS here.

The museum, coming up in Chanakyapuri, will be ready for formal inauguration by the end of next year.

According to noted danseuse Leela Samson, chairperson of the Sangeet Natak Akademy and the new Censor Board chief: "The museum will archive documents, resource and memorabilia that the SNA has collected over the last 60 years."

"We are disseminating the material but it is expensive to digitise them. And we are short of funds. We also don't know how we will manage the museum - one of the top dancers may have to quit their vocation to head the museum. There is so much of material," Samson told IANS.

"For the last 50 years, we were collecting. Now that new museum spaces are coming up, we have started sorting material," Samson said, elaborating on the psyche of documentation of performing arts in India.

The building is almost ready, said dancer Geeta Chandran, a member of the SNA executive committee set up to oversee the project.

"The museum is unique. It should have been built long ago," she said