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Dance

A guide to conducting research in Dance at Barnard College

How to Cite Performances

Dance research resources can come in a variety of types, so you may find yourself citing something that's a bit unusual. Here are some helpful examples, links, and tips. The following examples all refer to the MLA style, as that is commonly used for Humanities and Arts citation. If you're ever unsure, ask a librarian.

 

Interviews:

To cite an interview you conducted, give the name of the interviewee, the kind of interview (e.g. personal, telephone, email, etc), and the date.

Brown, Camille A. Personal interview. 22 July 2016.

To cite a published interview, use the name of the interviewee, title of interview (if part of a publication or recording, use quotes; if independent, italicize the title; if untitled, use the label Interview but not italicized or in quotes), and finish with the appropriate bibliographic information and medium.

Tallchief, Maria. "Tallchief Interview." Maria Tallchief coaching principal roles from Allegro Brillante. Dir. Nancy Reynolds. George Balanchine Foundation, 1999. DVD

or

Gordimer, Nadine. Interview. New York Times 10 Oct. 1991, late ed.: C25. Print

 

Live performance:

For a live performance, use this format - Title of Performance. By Firstname Lastname. Dir. Firstname Lastname. Perf. Firstname Lastname/s. Theatre/venue, Place. Date of Performance. Performance.

Lizzie Borden. By Agnes de Mille. Dir. Arthur Mitchell. City Center, New York. 17 Jan. 1983. Performance.

If you're citing the contribution of a particular individual within a performance, begin with that name.

Farrish, Kayla, perf. state. By Andrea Miller. Music by Arvo Pärt. Gallim Dance. The Joyce Theater, New York. 03 May 2018. Performance.

CiteSource from Trinity College has examples on citing in-person interviews, live performances, tweets, websites, and more.

The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) has more traditional and extensive citation information.

How to cite images

Visual sources can be difficult to cite, so be sure to 1) include as much information as you can, 2) format the elements consistently, and 3) adapt the general formats as described in published citation style guides as needed.

Citing images from an image database (such as ARTstor), should include most, if not all, of this information (or as much of it as can be easily determined from the source).

  • creator's name
  • title of the image as given in the database
  • date of creation
  • name and location of the institution that houses the image (if any)
  • dimensions (if known)
  • material or format (painting, sculpture, photograph, etc.)
  • database name and URL
  • date accessed the database

Other helpful image citation links: