Forget Your Troubles and Dance (Online)

We’ve all been there. The summer barbeque is in full swing. Racks of ribs are sizzling on an assortment of grills. Pool water is running in jolly rivulets from sun-drenched hair into wincing, chlorine-stung eyes. Someone breaks out the Bluetooth and puts on Tchaikovsky’s “The Firebird.” The whole party stands en pointe – and your ballet is rustier than the prow of the Titanic.

Never fear, Cats! Never again will you seek vainly for first position. 

A new electronic resource from UK Libraries, Dance Online: Dance in Video contains over 1,450 videos pertaining to the choreographic arts, including performances, instructional materials, interviews, and documentaries.

Students and scholars of dance now have easy access to hundreds of performances from some of the world’s most influential dance companies and performers, from traditional ballet to hip hop and street dance. Researchers can trace the history of modern dance by viewing pioneering performances that helped create contemporary styles and forms. 

Instructional materials provide a valuable resource for technical analysis and study, covering both basic and advanced techniques in ballet, ballroom, blues, hip hop, jazz, salsa, and many more styles. Titles include videos from the Finis Jhung Ballet Technique series, the Live at the Broadway Dance Center series, and the George Balanchine Foundation.

Documentaries and interviews with performers and choreographers offer insights into the creative process, allowing researchers to gain a deeper understanding of the artistic and cultural context of the performances.

So the next time the pool party breaks into a spontaneous improvisational floor routine drawing on Nijinsky’s Rite of Spring, you’ll be sure to wow the crowd with your knowledge of performers, choreographers, techniques, and the history and cultural significance of dance. 

For even more dance resources, make sure to visit the Lucille Caudill Little Fine Arts & Design Library and explore UK Libraries’ Dance Research Guide along with our many Theatre & Dance Databases.

More New Electronic Resources

Every month, UK Libraries adds new electronic resources to its collection of over 700 databases.

Below, explore all the resources added in the first half of 2026:

• Academic eBook Collection (EBSCO) – EBSCO's Academic eBook Collection is a large multi-disciplinary ebook collection of over 100,000 books from a variety of publishers.
• Johns Hopkins Diabetes Guide – A comprehensive web and mobile resource that delivers up-to-date information on the management and complications of diabetes. It contains diagnoses, classifications, specific complications with diagnostic and treatment information, comorbidities, detailed drug information and indications, interpretations, “how-to” details of clinical testing, and limitations of common laboratory and radiological studies.
• Johns Hopkins HIV Guide - The latest authoritative clinical decision support information on HIV diagnosis, management, and relevant medications.
• Johns Hopkins Psychiatry Guide – Quick-read recommendations for the diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric diseases, featuring frequently-updated content consistent with the latest DSM-5 diagnostic criteria and written by renowned experts from the Phipps Clinic at Johns Hopkins.
• Policy Commons: Public Health & Social Care – A Policy Commons module containing hard-to-find gray literature from the front lines of healthcare and social-care providers, researchers, and organizations.
• Policy Commons: World Governments – Part of Policy Commons, World Governments provides access to reports, documents, and datasets from national, regional, and local governments, as well as IGOs and NGOs across 180+ countries. It focuses on enabling comparison of policy documents, including budgets, audits, and inquiries. 
• urbanNext – A curated database of multi-format content about contemporary urban environments, including case studies and research, allowing researchers to navigate and stay up to date with current architectural theories and practices.
• Westlaw Campus Research – Campus access to legal research covering eight core content categories: Cases, Statutes and Court Rules, Regulations, Administrative Decisions and Guidance, Secondary Sources, Briefs, Proposed and Enacted Legislation, and Proposed and Adopted Regulations.