Primary Sources - Dance
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Oiseau de Feu: poster design: Firebird and the Prince (Tzarevitch). Leon Bakst. 1915. Harvard Theatre Collection. |
Dance Notation
Unlike music, choreography has not developed a stable, universal system of notation. There are several different systems developed by different schools and choreographers: Labanotation, Stepanov notation, Benesh notation, the Cecchetti method. Vaclav Nijinsky also worked on developing a system of dance notation.
When searching library catalogs or finding-aid databases for dance notation scores, it can be useful to add:
(choreograph* OR labanotat* OR notat*)
to other search parameters:
(debussy AND faun) AND (choreograph* OR labanotat* OR notat*)
This will catch things like: Labanotation, Benesh notation, notated using the Cecchetti method, etc.
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| Choreographic notes for Bronislava Nijinska's Le Train Bleu, 1924. Library of Congress. |
Primary Source Databases
- Dance Online. Dance in Video This link opens in a new windowStreaming video database of dance productions, documentaries, interviews, and coaching sessions by influential performers and companies of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Selections cover ballet, tap, jazz, contemporary, experimental, and improvisational dance, as well as forerunners of the forms and the pioneers of modern concert dance. The second volume expands upon the foundation built in Volume I, and showcases a new catalogue of dancers and partners including the Joffrey Ballet, John Jasperse Company, Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, Bavarian State Ballet, Royal Ballet of Cambodia, Kirov Ballet, and Compañía Nacional de Danza.
- Dance Online. Dance Studies Collection This link opens in a new windowNew and expanding curated collection of primary and secondary full-text materials to support informed performance, pedagogy, and scholarship in dance. Presents the historical context of 20th- and 21st-century dance and ballet through online monographs and reference works on dance history and studies, choreographers and dancers, choreography, notation, and technique; complete, in-color issues of selective dance periodicals (including Dance Magazine 1996 to near-current); correspondence; and exclusive photographs and other content.
Unique Collections in North American Repositories
| Harvard Library Harvard Library is home to the following Russian-dance related collections: Harvard Theatre Collection of Ukrainian sheet music, 1900-1940; Walter Nouvel letters to Serge Diaghilev, 1919-1929 (inclusive), 1928-1929 (bulk); Ballets russes programs, 1907-1929; Serge Lifar letters from Igor Markevitch and others, 1931-1986; and Souvenir programs of Ballets Russes companies, 1934-1947. |  |
| The Library of Congress holds a number of archival collections related to Russian dance: Serge Lifar collection on Serge Diaghilev, 1750-1950; Serge Grigoriev / Ballets Russes archive, 1909-2009; Bronislava Nijinska collection, circa 1740-1996 (LC); John J. Wayne Collection on Ida Rubinstein, 1909-2000; and the Igor Stravinsky family correspondence, 1930, 1939-1965. |  |
| Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library Columbia Rare Book and Manuscript Library is home to the Leonide Massine Papers, 1914-1963. |
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| The Morgan Library & Museum Several collections at the Morgan Library & Museum contain documents and artifacts related to Russian dance. Among them, the James Fuld Collection; the Robert Owen Lehman Collection; and the Mary Flagler Cary Music Collection. |
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