Research Guides: International Performing Arts Resources: Databases

Databases

International Bibliography of Theatre & Dance with Full Text
Over 60,000 journal articles, books, and dissertation abstracts about the performing arts.
Performing Arts Periodicals Database
Indexes more than 395 international periodicals, 160 journals, and a million records covering the arts and entertainment industry.
Music Periodicals Database
Over 1.3 million records, hundreds of international music periodicals, and 140 journals focusing on music from 1874 to the present.
Music Index (EBSCO)
Guide to music literature and periodicals from 1970 to the present.
RILM Abstracts of Music Literature
Abstracted and indexed bibliographic information covering the area of music, including music conferences from 1865 to the present.
RIPM Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals with Full Text
International, annotated bibliography of writings on musical history and culture, found in music periodicals published from 1800 to 1950.
Play Index
Contains over 31,000 plays published from 1949 to the present from around the globe.
Humanities Abstracts (with Full Text)
Abstracts and indexes articles on many areas of the humanities from almost 700 publications.

Music and Performing Arts (Alexander Street Press)
Audio and video from the Alexander Street Press spanning multiple performing arts genres, time periods, and thousands of artists.
Smithsonian Global Sound
Streaming access to 50,000 tracks of traditional and ethnic music, searchable by genre, instrument, place, cultural groups, and others.
Theatre in Video
Hundreds of videos of prolific plays and documentaries, including interviews with directors, writers, designers, and actors.
Dance in Video
Nearly 500 hours of dance productions and documentaries by influential performers and companies from the 20th century.
Naxos Music Library
World's largest online classical music library with access to 137,000 CDs, over two millions tracks, and over 400 labels, including sections for Chinese music and World music.
World Digital Library
Over 19,000 digitized cultural items from 193 countries, including images of dancers, instruments, and performances.
ARTstor
More than 35,000 images of performing arts from around the world, searchable by media, including film, audio, and digital art.
Ethnographic Video Online
Over 1,300 hours of ethnographic films on society and culture from around the world, with a section covering music, dance and art.

HOLLIS for Archival Discovery
Contains several digital music collections from around the world, such as the Sema Vakf Collection of Turkish Classical Music and the Stephen Blum Collection of Music from Iranian Khorasan.
MIT Global Shakespeares
Online access to videos of Shakespeare performances in East and Southeast Asia, India, Brazil, Europe and the Arab World, with commentary.
Muziekweb
Listen to world music sorted by region and genre from Netherland's music library.

Last Updated: Oct 9, 2025 11:12 AM

Subjects: Arts, International Studies