Performing arts

• Theater
• Opera
• Dance, ballet
• Mime
• Puppetry and shadow theater
• Circus
• Street theater
• Music-hall, songs, cabaret
• Celebrations

Dance, ballet

Opera Library and the Performing Arts department hold books and graphic materials on dance, together with archive collections from practitioners: dancers, choreographers, and set designers.

Materials at the Paris Opera ballet can be found in the Opera Library: musical materials (including the only known source of Mozart’s ballet “Les Petits Riens”), handwritten and printed librettos, and choreographic scores from all periods, from Raoul-Auger Feuillet to Angelin Preljocaj. The Library’s collections also include mock-ups of sets and costumes, engravings, photographs (including in particular the Pic collection), posters, programs, press packs, archives, and museum pieces from choreographic artists (e.g. Marie Taglioni, Serge Lifar, etc.), painters, and visual artists (e.g. Bakst).

The most noteworthy collections of materials include the following:

• Russian ballet: illustrations including original photographs, mock-ups of costumes (by Benois, Bakst, Gontcharova, Matisse, etc.), archives, and correspondence from Serge de Diaghilev and Boris Kochno. 
• The Archives Internationales de la danse, put together by Rolf de Maré, founder of the Ballets Suédois, from 1932 onwards and donated to the Opera Library in 1952: books and illustrations on all aspects of dance – history, ethnography, and fashions; original costumes from the Ballets Suédois. 
• A donation made by the Ballet - Théâtre Contemporain, a company formed in 1968, consisting of 88 mock-ups of sets created, in particular, by Sonia Delaunay, Karel Appel, Alexander Calder, and Edouard Pignon.

Dance-related collections held at the Richelieu Library (Site Richelieu), in the Performing Arts department, include the following:

• the collections of the dancers La Argentina, Nyota Inyoka, and Lucienne Lamballe 
• the collection of former dance company Ris et Danceries
• the collection from the Festival international de danse de Paris directed by Jean Robin 
• a large amount of material on Isadora Duncan (linked to the E.G. Craig and Mario Meunier collections).

Those studying court ballet will find music scores, librettos, and books of music collections in the Music department.

These collections are supplemented by audiovisual material (recordings of performances and documentaries on choreographers, troops, and dance genres) held at the François Mitterrand Library (Site François-Mitterrand). These mainly cover contemporary dance, folk dance, and street dance.