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There's a really interesting and valuable new "watch on demand" service from Alexander Street Music Press called Dance in Video. See information from the website below (I'm surprised it doesn't mention that many of the coaching and interview films from the Balanchine Foundation are included). Pricing probably puts it out of reach for most individuals, but if your library collects in the area of dance you should definitely ask them to subscribe. Mine makes it available to me at home by logging in with my library card's barcode, and I haven't been able to stop watching--that despite the fact that they haven't yet figured out how to get 16:9 films to play back in the correct aspect ratio (this can be excruciating) and a few other bugs in the playback that I'm sure will get fixed eventually.

It's in its infancy, but it's a great start! Considering how little dance has made it onto DVD or Netflix, this is a godsend.

--Anthony

Dance in Video (from Alexander Street Press)

About the Database

Dance in Video will contain 250 dance productions and documentaries by the most influential performers and companies of the 20th century. Selections cover ballet, tap, jazz, contemporary, experimental, and improvisational dance, as well as forerunners of the forms and the pioneers of modern concert dance. Included are classic performances from top ballet companies; experimental works from up-and-coming dance troupes; documentaries by and about leading choreographers; videos on dance training; and other items covering a wide range of 20th century dance styles.

Many performances currently targeted for Dance in Video include Points in Space (Merce Cunningham Dance Company); highlights from Dance Theatre of Harlem; an Evening with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre; Strange Fish (DV8 Physical Theatre); Silence is the End of our Song (Royal Danish Ballet); Intimate Pages (Rambert Dance Company); Swansong (English National Ballet); Peter and the Wolf (The Royal Ballet School); Rainbow Round My Shoulder (Donald McKayle); and hundreds more choreographed or performed by dancers and groups including Agnes de Mille, Mark Morris, Lestor Horton, Anna Sokolow, Norman Walker Dance Company, Anthony Tudor, Jose Limon, Paul Draper, Chuck Green, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, The Kirov Ballet, the Bolshoi Ballet, National Ballet of Canada, Nederlands Dans Theater, and others.

Specially developed controlled vocabularies let users browse by composer, choreographer, genre, performer, ensemble, and role.

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Thanks for the information, Anthony. I called the dance conservatory at Purchase College of SUNY last week to request permission to view dance tapes in its research library, and was told the library had none. I was really surprised by this. Do most college programs or libraries have access to tapes? I was trying to find an alternative to NYPL at Lincoln Center (I really do not like to pay for parking, because I think of all the DVDs I can buy, classes I can take, and performances I can see with that money.)

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Do most college programs or libraries have access to tapes? I was trying to find an alternative to NYPL at Lincoln Center (I really do not like to pay for parking, because I think of all the DVDs I can buy, classes I can take, and performances I can see with that money.)

One source of information is Worldcat (worldcat.org) for a location of where dance materials can be found (and consequently requested from your local library). Much of the material, however, does not circulate. If you are interested in Balanchine coaching materials, I'd suggest checking the Balanchine Foundation website for their list of tape repositories. Be warned, however, that appearance of a name does not guarantee that they will have all of the tapes. Here at the University of Illinois, they have everything up to about 2003 (or so), but then I think someone forgot about the existence of the collection as nothing new have been acquired.

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Yeah, that's the reason I posted the information about this. It seems that the VHS era was the great one for dance fans; so much more was available (legally) than now. So when somebody finally lets us finally see these things again using today's technology and equipment, I like to support them. Again, tell your library you'd like them to subscribe!

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Yeah, that's the reason I posted the information about this. It seems that the VHS era was the great one for dance fans; so much more was available (legally) than now. So when somebody finally lets us finally see these things again using today's technology and equipment, I like to support them. Again, tell your library you'd like them to subscribe!

Allow me just to say that we (TenduTV) have a lot coming down the pipeline. Some new, some "classics". Our next iTunes release will be Dutch National Ballet's Don Quichot on July 5 (HD, 5.1 audio), and some some older material about to go up on Amazon/CinemaNow. We also have the first season of DancePulp on or coming to DAIV, although it (along with the second season) is also available via streaming on Hulu (which can go directly to TV via Hulu+). New episodes will come out weekly starting July 5th (if memory serves, the first is Kathryn Bennetts, and we also have episodes with Ellen Bar, Eduardo Vilaro, Christian Spuck, Yumiko Takeshima, Susan Jaffe and a few others.

(If you're in the UK - we released the first dance performance in the iTunes UK video store last week, and will be rolling out to a number of other countries over the coming months).

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