Partners & Network

Akademie der Künste Berlin

Founded in 1696, the Academy of Arts (Akademie der Künste) in Berlin is one of the oldest European cultural institutes. It is an international community of artists and currently has well over 400 members across its six sections of fine art, architecture, music, literature, performing arts, film, and media art. With over 1,200 artists' estates and an extensive art collection and library, the academy's archive is one of the most important interdisciplinary archives of 20th century art.

arthistoricum.net - Specialised Information Service Art, Photography, Design

The Specialised Information Service Art, Photography, Design stands for the development of innovative digital tools and supports art historians in the publication and archiving of their research results and research data in open access. The web portal also offers access to art historical literature, digital source material as well as image and multimedia collections.

BASE - Bielefeld Academic Search Engine

BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine) is one of the world's largest search engines for academic web documents. The full texts of around 60 % of the documents indexed in BASE are freely accessible (open access). The operator of the BASE search engine is the Bielefeld University Library.

The metadata is indexed by data suppliers with academic research content - journals, repositories, digital collections, etc. - that have an OAI interface and provide the metadata via OAI-PMH.

German Theatre Museum Munich

The German Theatre Museum (Deutsches Theatermuseum) in Munich has made it its mission to preserve and document the theatre history of Munich, Bavaria, and Germany as completely as possible. In addition, in keeping with its tradition, it collects all accessible objects relating to the world history of theatre, particularly if they document influences on or through German theatre. The Museum also has the world's most extensive collection of theatre photographs. In total, it holds around 250,000 graphic sheets, around 500,000 autographs and around 4.3 million theatre photographs. The library of the German Theatre Museum is a reference library and only participates in interlibrary loans to a limited extent. Comprehensive research is therefore only possible on site.

Association of German Dance Archives

In 2007, five leading institutions joined forces: the Performing Arts Archive of the Academy of Arts in Berlin, the German Dance Archive Cologne, the German Dance Film Institute Bremen, the Media Library for Dance and Theatre of the Center for the Federal Republic of Germany of the International Theater Institute e.V. and the Dance Archive Leipzig e.V. Together they formed the Association of German Dance Archives (VdT) which aims to maintain and access sources and documents on the development and performance history of the art form of dance in Germany.

Theatre Studies Collection of the University of Cologne

The Theatre Studies Collection of the University of Cologne is an international documentation and research centre for theatre history and media culture. The collection focuses on German-speaking theatre culture - with a comprehensive review and photo archive, which is supplemented by a diverse graphic collection - and on the theatre and media forms of different cultures and eras. The library is part of the joint specialist library for media culture and theatre. As it is a reference library only, it is not possible to borrow books. The complete holdings of the library of the theatre studies collection can be searched via the online catalogue of the university and city library (http://www.ub.uni-koeln.de/) (please select the search mode "Uni"). If required, the partial holdings up to the acquisition year 2012 can be searched via the online catalogue of the Media Culture and Theater Library.

Project "Theatre and Music in Weimar 1754-1990"

The project, funded by the German Research Foundation, includes the digitisation, academic research, and online presentation of the playbills of the Weimar Theatre, one of the most important theatres in Germany. In the first work phase, Music and Theatre from the Hummel era to the end of the court theatre (1819-1918), the preliminary work of the sub-project C8 Music and Theatre of the Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 482 of the FSU Jena Ereignis Weimar-Jena. Kultur um 1800 was built upon. In the second phase of work, the period From the founding of the German National Theatre to the implementation of the 'Bitterfeld Programme' (1919-1969) was explored. In the third phase, this exploration was continued From the 1969/70 season to the political change in 1989/90. The project is a joint project of the Institute for Musicology at the FRANZ LISZT University of Music in Weimar and the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, the Thuringian University and State Library in Jena, the Thuringian State Archives - Main State Archives in Weimar, the German National Theater in Weimar, and the Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Weimar.

SAPA Foundation, Swiss Archive of the Performing Arts

The SAPA Foundation collects, documents, archives and disseminates works from the field of the performing arts (dance, theatre, performance) that were produced in Switzerland, are connected to Switzerland or are important for Switzerland. All of these documents form the Helvetica of the performing arts. SAPA was created on January 1, 2017, from the merger of two institutions:

• The Swiss Dance Archive (Schweizer Tanzarchiv), which in turn emerged from the merger of the Archives suisses de la danse (founded in 1993 by Jean Pierre Pastori in Lausanne) and the ‘mediathek tanz.ch’ (founded in 2005 by Wolfgang Brunner and Eva Richterich in Zurich).
• The Swiss Theatre Collection (Schweizerische Theatersammlung [STS]), founded in 1927 as a private initiative by theatre actors, was converted into a foundation in 1978 (with three public foundation sponsors and the Swiss Society for Theatre Culture SGTK as co-founder).

Freie Universität Berlin, Institute for Theatre Studies, Theatre History Collections

The Institute's Theatre History Collections contain extensive archive holdings, particularly on Berlin's theatre history from the 18th to the 21st centuries (with a focus on the period from 1900 to the 1950s). They are generally open to the public and can be viewed free of charge in the Institute's library. With the Walter Unruh Theatre History Collection, the Institute looks after one of the largest former private collections of its kind. In addition, the Institute's archive contains other important artists' estates as well as extensive collections of photos, playbills and press clippings. The programme booklet collection in particular is being actively maintained.

Digitisation project Karlsruhe playbills at the Baden State Library

The holdings of the Baden State Theatre, which have been preserved almost without interruption from the 1813/14 season to the end of the Weimar Republic, served as a template for the digitisation of the Karlsruhe playbills. Playbills owned by the Baden State Library and the Karlsruhe City Archives, which are not available in the State Theatre, are available in a different edition, or contain additional information have been added to the digital collections.

Theatre Museum of Düsseldorf

The museum is unique of its kind: theatre history collections, interactive exhibitions, socio-cultural programmes, educational work, performance projects - all under one roof. Founded as an archive in 1947, the Theatre Museum has been continuously developed in the Hofgartenhaus since 1988.

Düsseldorf Playbills Digitisation Project of the University and State Library of Düsseldorf

In the project funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), around 13,000 playbills from Düsseldorf theatres from 1802 to 1918 have been indexed and digitised. Particular attention was paid to the depth of indexing: not only were the directors, authors and composers of the respective plays included in the catalogue, but also, where possible, all other people involved, especially the actors.

Theatre collection 'Komplex Mauerbach' of the Don Juan Archive Vienna

The 'Komplex Mauerbach' (KMB) is a theatre collection consisting of around 2,975 volumes with around 4,500 theatre texts and librettos. These were printed from the middle of the 18th century to around 1930 in German-speaking countries (e.g. in Vienna, Berlin, Leipzig), and mostly in German.

German Forum for Figure Theatre and Puppetry

The library focuses on puppet theatre and puppetry art. The collection includes general publications on the history and theory of puppet and object theatre, theatre and university publications, illustrated books on puppet and object theatre around the world, catalogues of mask and puppet exhibitions; construction and performance instructions; publications on puppetry in therapy and teaching, and over 1,500 pieces used for puppet theatre. A special feature is the range of international and German puppet theatre magazines.

In addition to the collection on puppet theatre, literature on related arts such as the visual and performing arts, new media, and cultural policy writings is also offered. The archive collects photos, festival and theatre programmes, reviews and other grey literature. The focus of the archive is on the German puppet theatre scene.

Technische Universität Berlin Architecture Museum / Theatre Building Collection

The theatre building collection of the TU Berlin is an undiscovered treasure: a bundle of plan folders with 319 theatre buildings, over 600 glass plate negatives in various formats, 44 file folders with teaching materials from the 1950s and 1960s, and folders with historical stage design drawings. The inventory comes from the estate of the theatre technician and stage architect Prof. Friedrich Kranich, was initially located at the Institute for Theatre Building at the TU Berlin, later at the Stage Design Scenic Space, and was incorporated into the collections of the Architecture Museum for its long-term preservation and use.

Playbills from the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Library Hannover

The playbills collection of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Library - Lower Saxony State Library includes around 700 items from the period 1785-1796. The plays were all performed in the Royal Court Theatre in Hanover. In addition to the name of the play, the playbills contain information on the cast, prices and the start time of the play. The collection provides an insight into 10 years of theatre history in Hanover, showing which plays were particularly popular and which actors worked at the theatre.

Dance Fund Heritage - Funding artistic projects on dance in the 20th century

After the end of the large-scale nationwide initiative for dance in Germany, Tanzplan Deutschland (2006-2011), the Federal Cultural Foundation initiated the two funds TANZFONDS PARTNER (2011-2014) and TANZFONDS ERBE (2011-2019). As the project sponsor, DIEHL+RITTER gUG (now Bureau Ritter gUG was responsible for the conception and design of both funds, and the project manager was Madeline Ritter.

Society for Dance Research (gtf)

The Society for Dance Research (Gesellschaft für Tanzforschung, gtf) promotes professional discourse on dance in its many different forms at national and international level. It brings people with different interests in dance from the areas of art and culture, science and research, education, communication, and therapy into contact with one another.

Society for Theatre History e.V.

The Society for Theatre History was founded on April 6, 1902, in Berlin by writers, journalists, scholars, stage people, and others interested in theatre with the aim of creating an interdisciplinary forum for dealing with theatre in history and the present. It is an independent academic association with connections to numerous other theatre studies teaching and research institutions, theatre collections, museums and libraries in Germany and abroad.

Society for Theatre Studies e.V.

The Society for Theatre Studies has set itself the goal of promoting theatre studies in research and teaching. To this end, it organizes conferences and working groups, issues publications and promotes young academics. The society also represents the interests of theatre studies in the public realm.

Federal Association of Theatre Collecting Institutions in Germany

The Federal Association of Theater Collecting Institutions in Germany (TheSiD) sees itself as the representative of the interests of German theater archives, libraries, and museums. It is the German branch of the International Society of Libraries and Museums for the Performing Arts (Société Internationale des bibliothèques et des musées des arts du spectacle [SIBMAS]). All of this, which belongs to the core area of material cultural heritage and which expressly refers to the intangible cultural heritage of the theatre, is also repeatedly threatened by those who do not understand and do not value this heritage entrusted to them. TheSiD wants to create public awareness and appreciation for these often unique cultural treasures that must be preserved but also explained, because the material refers to the actual content of the intangible.