Dance Index

Dance Index is a dance journal founded by Lincoln Kirstein in 1942. Over the next seven years, 56 issues were published about dance. The writing and photography were of high quality and delved deeply into various aspects of dance and dance history.[1][2][3]

Kirstein wrote some of the articles, and others were written by writers such as Lillian Moore and Yury Slonimsky.[2]

Kirstein showed boldness in starting such a specialized journal during a world war, World War II.[4]

The journal was a pioneer journal, in devoting itself completely to dance history, written by professionals, where other journals had only had the occasional piece written by amateurs.[4] It is considered an important journal for dance scholarship.[1]

The first year of the journal concentrated on Americana.[3] Some subsequent writing was about European ballet.[3] Writers searched assiduously for sources.[3] It generally ignored the modern dance of that time, except for one piece on Martha Graham.[3]

Kirstein's papers and diaries are in the Dance Collection, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.[1]

In 1948, the Ballet Society took over publishing Dance Index, although this would have been brief as the magazine ceased publication that year.[2]

In Fall of 2017, the Ballet Society and Eakins Press began publishing Dance Index again, two issues a year. Around that time, they also put all 56 issues of the magazine from the 1940s online, for free.[4][5]