Research Guides: Researching Dancers and Choreographers: Overview

Getting Started

Use background resources to find topics of interest, possible search terms to get more relevant results, and build foundational knowledge. Often these resources will reference other publications to help jumpstart your research.

American Ballet Theatre Library
Has two parts: A Ballet Dictionary, which offers definitions of and videos for 170 terms, and a Repertory Archive, which provides information about all pieces ever performed by ABT.

Dance Online: Dance Studies Collection
Historical context of dance from the 1900s-, including dance notation & photographs

NPR
Their Dance section provides podcasts and articles, including interviews with choreographers.
Playbill
Provides information about current Broadway, off-Broadway, and London shows, as well as financial information about current productions.

African Theatre 17: Contemporary Dance by Yvette Hutchison
ISBN: 9781847011879

Publication Date: 2018

Discusses African Dance in its global as well as local contexts.
Ballet and Modern Dance by Jack Anderson
Call Number: GV1787 .A467 1992

Publication Date: 1993

An engaging interpretation of dance history--from the Ancient Greeks and European royal courts to the rise of the "American" ballet and the explosion of modern dance.
Biographical Dictionary of Dance by Barbara Cohen-Stratyner
Call Number: GV1785.A1 C58 1982

Publication Date: 1982

Biographical information on more than 2,900 American and European dance professionals over four centuries.
Contemporary Choreography by Jo Butterworth (Editor); Liesbeth Wildschut (Editor)
ISBN: 9781138679986

Publication Date: 2017-12-11

Covers choreographic enquiry, investigation into the creative process, and innovative challenges to traditional understandings of dance making.
Dance, Modernism, and Modernity by Ramsay Burt and Michael Huxley
ISBN: 9780429855948

Publication Date: 2019

Explores how leading dancers responded to modernity.
Dancers and Choreographers by Leslie Getz; Lincoln Kirsten (Introduction by)
Call Number: Z7514.D2 G48 1995

Publication Date: 1995

Covers ballet and modern dance as it developed across the US, England, Canada and Australia.
Fifty Contemporary Choreographers by Jo Butterworth (Editor)
Publication Date: 2011

A unique and authoritative guide to the lives and work of prominent living contemporary choreographers.
The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance by Bruce Baird and Rosemary Candelario
ISBN: 9781138691094

Publication Date: 2018

A comprehensive introduction to and analysis of the global art form butoh, which originated in 1960s Japan.