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DANC 003 : Dance in the Movies (SC)
Finding Background Information:
International encyclopedia of dance
Publisher: New York : Oxford University Press, 1998.
Contains good articles and bibliographies on "Film and Video" and "Film Musicals".
Envisioning dance on film and video
Publisher: New York : Routledge, 2002.
The preface has a concise timeline entitled "A Century of Dance and Media", the final chapter is a filmography, and the appendix contains a good bibliography.
Dance in Film and Television
A bibliography from the Media Resources Center at UC Berkeley. Swarthmore owns most of the items listed.
Film choreographers and dance directors
Publisher: Jefferson, N.C. : McFarland & Co., Publishers, c1997.
"This is a comprehensive reference work to 970 choreographers and dance directors who worked in nearly 3,500 films. For each, there is a vital biography, a description of their choreographic style, a listing of their stage, television, music video, nightclub and concert credits, and a listing of the movies they choreographed. A decade-by-decade history of dance on film and a filmography of choreographically important works in each decade are included."--BOOK JACKET.
Dance on camera
Publisher: Lanham, Md. : Scarecrow Press ; 1998.
An excellent place to link names of choreographers, directors, dance companies, and dancers with the films with which they are associated. There is also a detailed subject index.
Film indexes online
Provider: ProQuest
The British Film Institute's Film Index International and American Film Institute's Catalog together in one site. An authoritative alternative to the IMDB. Search by keyword; crew; character name; genre; release year and more. Many extensive plot summaries included in the AFI Catalog.
Film literature index
Offers abstracts to articles from film and television journals from 30 countries. The journals range from scholarly to popular titles. Contains approximately 700,000 citations to articles, film reviews and book reviews published between 1976-2001.
Internet movie database
The Internet Movie Database indexes more than 100,000 movies and allows for searching by a film title, a person's name, and by keyword. For example, a keyword search on "tap dance" listed the films in the database which include that dance. Results include links to plot summaries, biographies, and quotations.
Finding Videos and Books:
Dance Film Videos and Books in the Tri-Colleges
A customized search in Tripod which can be modified by campus and format.
New York Public Library Dance Collection Catalog
The NYPL Dance Catalog lists works about all forms of dance, from all cultures, in print and other media. It includes materials in many languages and serves as an index to an international range of dance writings.
WorldCat
This is a gigantic catalog of materials owned by libraries all over the world listing books, journals, scores, sound recordings, videos, websites, and manuscript collections.
Finding Journal Articles:
ProQuest Research Library
Provider: ProQuest
Provides online access to an extensive collection of full-text articles from journals across a wide range of subject areas, including including dance, film studies, theatre, and music. Covers 1971-present.
Arts & humanities citation index
Provider: ISI
A multidisciplinary database covering the journal literature of the arts and humanities with selected, relevant items from major science and social science journals. References to and from journal articles can also be searched. Swarthmore has access to the AHCI from 1975 to the present through Web of Science.
JSTOR
Provides full-text and page images from many of the top journals in
most academic disciplines. Coverage is from the inception of the
journal through three to five years ago.
International index to the performing arts
Publisher: [Alexandria, Va.] : Chadwyck-Healey, Inc.,
Provides abstracts and full-text to journal articles. Covers a broad
spectrum of the arts and entertainment industry including dance, film,
television, theater, opera, and broadcasting. Covers 1864-present.
Getting Materials not at Swarthmore:
If something you need is not available on Swarthmore’s campus then it can be requested through our Tri-College Borrowing and Interlibrary Loan services.
Citing Sources:
Guidelines for style and the documentation of sources for scholarly papers in music and dance follow The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed. The manual is not available online but thorough explanations can be found in the Chicago/Turabian Documentation section of the UW-Madison Writing Center website. Citing the notes that accompany sound recordings and scores can be tricky. Williams College has a good citation guide for non-book formats




