Dance
This guide provides selected resources available to you through UCalgary Library and the Internet
Collections
- Jerome Robbins Dance Division Audio and Moving Image Archiv
The Jerome Robbins Dance Division of The New York Public Library is the largest and most comprehensive archive in the world devoted to the documentation of dance. Chronicling the art of dance in all its manifestations—ballet, ethnic, modern, social, and folk—the division is much more than a library in the usual sense of the word. - An American Ballroom Companion: Dance Instruction Manuals, ca. 1490 to 1920
A collection of over two hundred social dance manuals at the Library of Congress. The list begins with a rare late fifteenth-century source, Les basses danses de Marguerite d'Autriche (c.1490) and ends with Ella Gardner's 1929 Public dance halls, their regulation and place in the recreation of adolescents.
Other Specialized Collections
- Pioneers of Chinese DanceThe collection is focused on private donations from individual dancers who started their careers in the 1940s and 1950s and had a major impact on the history of Chinese dance. In most cases, the photographs were scanned directly from dancers’ personal photo albums in their homes in China.
- Posters: Performing Arts PostersContains approximately 2,100 posters in the online Performing Arts Posters category represent the entire contents of three collections: the Magic Poster Collection, the Minstrel Poster Collection, and the Theatrical Poster Collection.
- Charles H. McCaghy Collection of Exotic Dance from Burlesque to ClubsThis collection consists of photos, cabinet cards and tobacco cards from the Charles H. McCaghy Collection of Exotic Dance from Burlesque to Clubs. The McCaghy Collection spans the mid-nineteenth century to the present day, and explores early burlesque/vaudeville to modern strip clubs and the neo-burlesque movement.
- Selections from the Martha Graham CollectionThe Martha Graham Collection is comprised of materials that document the career of modern dance pioneer Martha Graham and traces the history of the development of her company and school.
- Selections from the Katherine Dunham CollectionThis online Katherine Dunham Collection presentation makes available a selection of photographs from the Library of Congress, The Missouri Historical Society, and Southern Illinois University; film and videotape excerpts from Dunham's research and performing career; and selections from the Library's Dunham Legacy Project that documented the Dunham dance technique.
- Ballets Russes de Serge DiaghilevThis web presentation includes a wide range of Ballets Russes objects, including photographs, scrapbooks, writings, costume and set designs, choreographic notes, music scores, diaries, and programs.