LibGuides: Performing Arts: Dance

ASK Chicago Collections

Archival Sources

Explore Chicago Collections Homepage
You can search for collections broadly relating to dance by searching for "dance" from the homepage. Images digitized from collections appear at the top; physical collections appear below that.

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You can also search for more specific topics, such as choreographer, dancer, type of dance, or company.
The Newberry Library's Dance Collections
Explore The Newberry Library's collections related to dance.
Chicago History Museum's Digital Dance Collection
University of Illinois at Chicago Digital Images Collection
School dances and other images.

Kaufmann & Fabry Co. "Arthur Bublitz and Lenore Feldon offer a bit of native dancing [known as] the Jarabe dance, at the Mexican Village at the World's Fair. They are featured in the show that entertains afternoons and nights at the village," ca. 1933-1934. University of Illinois at Chicago, http://explore.chicagocollections.org/image/uic/67/280538 t/

Online Sources

An American Ballroom Companion: Dance Instruction Manuals, ca. 1490 to 1920
Digitized social-dance manuals from the Library of Congress, 1490-1929; does include some Chicago-related items.

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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. Along with dance instruction manuals, this online presentation also includes a significant number of antidance manuals, histories, treatises on etiquette, and items from other conceptual categories. Many of the manuals also provide historical information on theatrical dance. All illuminate the manner in which people have joyfully expressed themselves as they dance for and with one another.
Jacob's Pillow Dance Interactive
Collection of videos filmed at Jacob's Pillow from the 1930's to the present; includes film of Chicago dance companies, with quite a few videos from Hubbard Street Dance Chicago (Hubbard Street Dance's physical records are held at the Newberry Library).
Library of Congress Performing Arts Databases
Digitized photographs, manuscripts, correspondence and ephemera. The Performing Arts Databases page contains database and catalog resources that are intended to help users with research in the performing arts areas. The databases are stand-alone resources that are not integrated with the rest of the Library’s digital collections or catalogs.

Books and Other Published Sources

WorldCat allows you to search the holdings of libraries around the world. Check to see if these titles are at a library near you! If not, see if a local public library or a university with which you are affiliated allows you to do interlibrary loan. WorldCat may not include images or summaries for all titles.

International Dictionary of Modern Dance by Taryn Benbow-Pfalzgraf (Editor); Glynis Benbow-Niemier (Contribution by); St. James Press Staff
ISBN: 9781558623590

Publication Date: 1998-05-01
Research in Dance by Mary S. Bopp
ISBN: 9780816190652

Publication Date: 1993-12-01
A Core Collection in Dance by Mary E. Edsall (Editor); Association of College and Research Libraries, Dance Librarians Committee (Contribution by)
ISBN: 0838981186

Publication Date: 2001-05-01
International Dictionary of Ballet by Martha Bremser (Editor)
ISBN: 1558620842

Publication Date: 1993-09-01

The International Dictionary of Ballet has as its subject all of ballet, from its beginnings in the Renaissance to contemporary dance.
International Dictionary of Modern Dance by Taryn Benbow-Pfalzgraf (Editor); Glynis Benbow-Niemier (Contribution by); St. James Press Staff
ISBN: 1558623590

Publication Date: 1998-05-01

This reference offers alphabetically arranged essays, selected, written and reviewed by expert contributors.
International Encyclopedia of Dance by Perspectives Foundation Inc., Staff (Editor); Selma Jeanne Cohen (Editor)
ISBN: 0195173694

Publication Date: 2004-12-23

The International Encyclopedia of Dance documents all types of dance around the world and throughout history.