The Dance collection includes unique Australian dance resources across a spectrum of dance styles. The collection supports the preservation of dance materials and documents dance in Australia. You can find:

  • Personal papers of dancers, including travel documents and albums
  • Oral history interviews with Australians involved in dance
  • Pictures of dance, including photographs and art works
  • Performances of Australian productions and international touring companies
  • Notated dance scores and associated papers
  • Performance programs, cast sheets, fliers and brochures
  • Sound recordings of folk dance music

Highlights

  • Australian Dance Theatre – research materials relating to Australia’s oldest contemporary dance company
  • The Ballets Russes in Australasia – a large archive of programs, posters and other ephemera relating to the three Australian and New Zealand tours of Col. Wassily de Basil’s famous companies between 1936 and 1940.  Most is digitised  
  • Borovansky Ballet – a range of materials from diverse private and public collections describing the evolution of Australia’s first long-term professional dance company
  • Papers of Gertrud Bodenwieser – a large archive of papers, photographs, designs and programs relating to Australia’s first modern dance company, the Bodenwieser Ballet 
  • Performances – short articles describing the history of individual productions created in Australia, Australian productions of international repertoire, and others presented by overseas touring