Dance Subject Guide

An introduction to resources in dance at St. Olaf College

Research and Instruction Librarian for Music & Fine Arts

Karen Olson

she/her/hers

Email Me

Contact:

Christiansen Hall of Music 147 (Music Library)
& Rolvaag Library 306

507-786-3362

Subjects: Art and Art History, Dance, Music, Theater

Citation Styles for Dance

Always check with your instructor to be sure you are using the correct citation style.

Most dance research uses either MLA style or Notes-Bibliography Chicago style. Here are links to the official guides for these styles.

In addition to consulting the official style guides linked above, you might also find the guides at Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab) helpful:

Some dance-specific citation scenarios are demonstrated below.

Citing Dance Performances

The citation links given above cover most citation situations (articles in journals, YouTube videos, etc.), but they do not offer many examples of how to cite dance performances.

Dance performances can be tricky. Is the dance choreographed or is it a social dance? Are you citing a live performance or a video recording? You may find yourself combining aspects of "live performance" formats with "recording" formats to build a complete citation.

Here are some examples using MLA style. For more examples, consult Appendix 2 of the 9th edition of the MLA Handbook.

Basic format for a live performance:

Choreographer Last, Choreographer First. Title of Dance. Performers, date, location of performance.

Peterson, Jeffery. Side By Side (2013). Performance by Companydance, 2 May 2024, St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN.

Basic format for a social dance viewed online (here I basically follow the format for citing any online video):

Performer Last, Performer First. "Title of Video." Website, Uploader, upload date, url.

Bartlett, James, and Lauren Jones. "James Bartlett & Lauren Jones -1st Place Advanced/All-Stars Jack&Jill - Midland Swing Open 2022." YouTube, uploaded by West Coast Swing, 24 Oct. 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLzpnDbBIpE.

Basic format for a recorded choreographed performance viewed online (this combines aspects of the format for choreographed live dance with the format for an online video):

Choreographer Last, Choreographer First. Title of Dance. Performers, date. Website, Uploader, url.

Gardner, Danny. A Tap Dance in a Circle. Performance by Danny Gardner and Geoffrey Goldberg. Vimeo, uploaded by Geoffrey Goldberg, 15 July 2015, https://vimeo.com/133609110.

Note that in the above example, I left out the performance date because that information was not provided; all I had was the upload date for the video.