German Dance Archive Cologne – Dance Museum

The German Dance Archive Cologne not only preserves dance art and its testimonies: in the adjoining dance museum, the history and present of dance art can be experienced in a special way in annually changing thematic exhibitions. The exhibitions draw on the rich holdings of the German Dance Archive Cologne. The Dance Museum aims to encourage its visitors to see the reality of dance “with different eyes” – with exhibitions that seek to express the essence of dance.

Events accompanying the exhibitions, such as guided tours, lectures, film presentations, readings, and discussions, make the Dance Museum a place of encounter and enable visitors to gain new insights into the subject, bringing dance in all its cross-cultural diversity and fascinating history closer to a broad audience.

The German Dance Archive Cologne houses over 400 estates and collections of dancers, choreographers, dance teachers, and ballet critics, including Harald Kreutzberg, Kurt Jooss, the Sacharoffs, Mary Wigman, and Dore Hoyer. The photo collection comprises over 160,000 photographs, 117,000 original negatives, and estates of photographers such as Siegfried Enkelmann and Hans Rama. The archive also has an art collection on the subject of dance—including the estates of Ernst Oppler and Arthur Grunenberg—as well as a costume and poster collection.