Dance Video Resources at KU
The KU Libraries own an extensive collection of dance videos including performances, instructional videos, and documentaries. You can find videos on VHS and DVD by searching the Library Catalog.
We also subscribe to several streaming video databases with dance content; most of these allow you to make playlists, edit clips for showing examples, and embed video clips in presentations, syllabi, or Blackboard. In order to access KU Libraries databases, e-journals, and other e-resources from off-campus, you will need to know your KU Online ID and password. When you first attempt to connect to a database or e-journal, you will be prompted to enter this information.
See Off-campus Access to KU Libraries Databases and E-journals for more information.
Recommended Databases for Finding Videos
- Alexander Street Press This link opens in a new windowThis aggregated database provides access to all of KU’s Alexander Street Press collections. Video, audio, and text covering a wide variety of subject matters are included. In addition to contemporary sources, this database contains significant amounts of primary sources. Video resources include Academic Video Online: Premium, Dance in Video, and Theatre in Video.
- Academic Video Online This link opens in a new windowStreaming video from the BBC, Arthaus, CBS, Kino International, Documentary Educational Resources, California Newsreel, Opus Arte, The Cinema Guild, Pennebaker Hegedus Films, Psychotherapy.net, and hundreds of other partners. Newsreels, award-winning documentaries, field recording, interviews, lectures, training videos, and exclusive primary footage.
For Dance specific results, try limiting your search using one of the following methods:
Browse -- Disciplines -- Dance
Fields of Interest -- Dance
Advanced Search -- Music & Performing Arts -- Dance - Broadway on DemandThe Broadway on Demand Collection provides an extensive range of content that goes beyond live performances. Along with musicals, plays, and dance performances, the collection includes unique behind-the-scenes series, documentaries, and masterclasses to help researchers gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of the art of theater.
- Dance Online: Dance in video This link opens in a new windowProvides 900 hours of video content covering the full scope of 20th and 21st century dance. The collection includes performances, documentaries, interviews, and instructional videos from the most influential performers and companies.
- Digital Theatre Plus This link opens in a new windowA streaming video database of theater productions, including Shakespeare, classics, musical theater, dance, opera, and recent British productions.
Digital Theatre Plus uses Single Sign On for both on and off campus users:
Click Sign in and enter your email address ending in 'ku.edu' then click Next.
Type in 'kansas' or scroll down to find 'University of Kansas' then click the institution name.
Sign in with KU username and password.
- Films on demand This link opens in a new windowA digital video delivery service allows users to view streaming videos from Films Media Group 24/7. Choose from more than 20,000+ educational titles in dozens of subject areas, including dance.
- Kanopy This link opens in a new windowKanopy offers thousands of films, about a multitude of subjects, including theatre and dance titles.
- Met Opera on Demand This link opens in a new windowMet Opera on Demand offers users instant access to more than 500 full-length Metropolitan Opera performances, including stunning HD videos from the Met's award-winning Live in HD series of movie theater transmissions, classic telecasts from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, and hundreds of radio broadcasts dating back to 1935.
- Naxos video library This link opens in a new windowNaxos Video Library provides an extensive streaming video library of classical music performances, opera, ballet, live concerts and documentaries.
Online Dance Video Collections
- BroadwayHD*Requires an individual subscription.* An on-demand digital streaming media company. Based in New York City, the company records and distributes live theater performances and previously recorded theatrical productions.
- Dance Heritage Coalition: America's Irreplaceable Dance TreasuresIncludes newly commissioned essays, bibliographies and research resources, and curated visual materials.The collection encompasses individuals, organizations, and dance styles, and is intended to heighten public interest in the magnificence and richness of America’s dance heritage and the imperative to document and preserve it for future generations.
- Internet ArchiveThis digital crowd sourced archive contains all types of materials.
- Jacob's Pillow Dance InteractiveAn online video collection of Jacob's Pillow Festival artists from 1937 to today.
- Jerome Robbins Dance Division Audio & Moving Image ArchiveExplore the New York Public Library Dance Division's digitized moving image and audio recordings, including: Jerome Robbins Archive of the Recorded, Mikhail Baryshnikov Archive, Dance Theater Workshop Video Archive, Victor Jessen Video Archive, National Dance Institute Archive, PS 122 Archive, Merce Cunningham Archive, and David Gordon Archive.
- NumeridanseNumeridanse is a multimedia dance platform. It offers free access to a unique video base: filmed performances, documentaries, interviews, fictions, dance videos. Every single genre, style and form is showcased here: butoh, classical ballet, neo-classical ballet, baroque, Indian, African, flamenco, contemporary, traditional dances, hip-hop, tango, jazz, circus arts, performance, etc.
- OntheBoards.TV*Requires individual purchase / subscription." Provides access to films of full-length performances by artists working in dance, theater, music and other forms that defy categorization.
- UbuWeb DanceAn independent resource dedicated to all strains of the avant-garde and outsider arts. There is a lot of crossover and perhaps moments of purposely curated eclecticism, hence a rather unorthodox mix of pure, art, and pop dance forms.
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