Intro to Dance Research: Preliminary Resources
Find Encyclopedia Articles
Encyclopedia articles are an excellent way to quickly learn the basic information about your research topic, providing you with the terminology and names you'll need for further research.
We have hundreds of encyclopedias in print editions on topics ranging from American Art to Zombies! To find them:
- Go to Usearch, the library catalog
- Search for: Encyclopedias AND topic
- Replace topic with a term or phrase describing your general research interest. For example: Encyclopedias AND Social Dance
- If needed, limit your results using the Resource Type and Subject options in the right-side column.
- If you see a link under the title that says "Available At" or "Checked Out," the encyclopedia is available in print. If you see a link for "Online Access," it's available as an e-book.
- International Encyclopedia of DanceMarriott Library, Level 2, General Collection: GV1585.I586 1998. (Also available as an e-book. You must be on campus or logged into Off Campus Access to view it.)
- Encyclopedia of Modernism This link opens in a new windowComprehensive resource for interdisciplinary and global content about the Modernist period. Covers eight key subject areas: Literature, Architecture, Visual Arts, Music, Dance, Theatre, Film, and Intellectual Currents.
- Oxford Reference Online: Performing ArtsOnline access to encyclopedias, dictionaries, maps, timelines, and quotations. Covers a wide variety of topics, including the performing and visual arts.
Find Biographies
Find Biographies in Books
Use the library catalog's Advanced Search mode. Search for the phrase biography AND name, where name is an actual person’s name, to find books about that person. You can replace the word name with the terms choreographers or dancers for broader results.
Find Biographies in Databases
- Biography Reference Bank SelectFocus: International, early history to the present.
- Oxford Dictionary of National BiographyFocus: British Isles, early history to the present.
Handbooks: Overviews of Dance Topics
The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Ballet by
Explores the many ways ballet functions as a global practice in the 21st century, providing new perspectives on ballet's past, present, and future.The Oxford Handbook of Screendance Studies by
Overview of the histories, practices, and critical and theoretical foundations of the rapidly changing landscape of screendance.The Oxford Handbook of Improvisation in Dance by
Provides a cutting-edge volume on dance improvisation in all its facets, exploring the ways that dance improvisation practices reflect our ability to adapt, communicate, and respond to our environment.The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Competition by
Overview on how competition affects the presentation and experience of dance and, in response, how dancing bodies negotiate, critique, and resist the aesthetic and social structures of the competition paradigm.The Oxford Handbook of Dance and the Popular Screen by
Overview of the study of dance in popular moving images - films, television shows, commercials, music videos, and YouTube - and offers new ways to understand the multi-layered meanings of the dancing body by engaging with methodologies from critical dance studies, performance studies, and film/media analysis.The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Reenactment by
A cross-section of artists and scholars engaged with the phenomenon of reenactment in dance from a practical and theoretical standpoint.The Oxford Handbook of Jewishness and Dance by
Documents and celebrates the significant impact of Jewish identity on a variety of communities and the dance world writ large. Focuses on North America, Europe, and Israel in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Dance Organizations
- Dance Heritage Coalition: 100+ TreasuresFollow the "Dance Treasures" link to find 100+ essays, with images & video, profiling American dancers, choreographers, and dance companies. (As of September 2022, a new site for America's Irreplaceable Dance Treasures is available.)