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# Brooklyn Academy of Music Digitizes 70,000 Objects Spanning 150 Years of Performance
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/a-new-online-archive-for-the-brooklyn-academy-of-music/
- Published: 2017-07-13T18:50:13.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T15:56:39.000Z
- Description: The Brooklyn Academy of Music's new digital archive features playbills, photographs, videos, audio, and ephemera from a century and a half of theatrical history.
- Author: Allison Meier
- Tags: News, Archives, BAM, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Digitization, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:30(2016, 2017, part 3)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2017/06/bamarchives04.jpg)

Portrait of Ruth Saint-Denis, a copy of which is in the BAM Archives (1920) (via Library of Congress/Wikimedia)

From an [1869 advertisement](http://levyarchive.bam.org/Detail/objects/35078?ref=hyperallergic.com) for a lecture by [Frederick Douglass](https://hyperallergic.com/frederick-douglass-most-photographed-19th-century-american/), to production photographs of the [2012 revival](http://levyarchive.bam.org/Detail/occurrences/3334?ref=hyperallergic.com) of Philip Glass and Robert Wilson’s [*Einstein on the Beach*](https://hyperallergic.com/55658/out-of-the-blue-philip-glass-robert-wilson-and-einstein-on-the-beach/), the [Leon Levy BAM Digital Archive](http://levyarchive.bam.org/?ref=hyperallergic.com) contains more than 70,000 items chronicling over 150 years of theatrical history at the [Brooklyn Academy of Music](http://www.bam.org/?ref=hyperallergic.com) (BAM). The online platform for the [BAM Hamm Archives](http://levyarchive.bam.org/About/Index?ref=hyperallergic.com) was launched last month, including collections of [posters](http://levyarchive.bam.org/Detail/collections/9398?ref=hyperallergic.com), [playbills](http://levyarchive.bam.org/Detail/collections/1?ref=hyperallergic.com), [building photographs](http://levyarchive.bam.org/Detail/collections/2937?ref=hyperallergic.com), and [audio and video recordings](http://levyarchive.bam.org/Detail/collections/10590?ref=hyperallergic.com).

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2017/06/bamarchives02.jpg)

Ticket for the General Ulysses S. Grant memorial service (1885) (courtesy BAM Archives)

As [the *New York Times* reported](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/20/arts/brooklyn-academy-of-music-puts-70000-archive-materials-online.html?ref=hyperallergic.com), the debut of the archive followed years of development, and a $1 million grant from the [Leon Levy Foundation](http://leonlevyfoundation.org/?ref=hyperallergic.com) (which also supported [the digital collection](http://archives.nyphil.org/?ref=hyperallergic.com) of the New York Philharmonic). It has an easy-to-navigate interface, where users can search by [production](http://levyarchive.bam.org/Browse/occurrences/view/list?ref=hyperallergic.com), going back to the 1860s, and by people and organizations, from [Air](http://levyarchive.bam.org/Detail/entities/5733?ref=hyperallergic.com) to [John Zorn](http://levyarchive.bam.org/Detail/entities/397?ref=hyperallergic.com). The initial featured collections include [highlights from the archive](http://levyarchive.bam.org/Front/Index/featured%5Fset%5Fid/1700?ref=hyperallergic.com), material related to choreographer [Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker](http://levyarchive.bam.org/Front/Index/featured%5Fset%5Fid/1967?ref=hyperallergic.com), the [Next Wave Festival](http://levyarchive.bam.org/Front/Index/featured%5Fset%5Fid/1701?ref=hyperallergic.com), [Peter Brook’s nine-hour epic *The Mahabharata*](http://levyarchive.bam.org/Front/Index/featured%5Fset%5Fid/1985?ref=hyperallergic.com), and [performances by the Royal Shakespeare Company](http://levyarchive.bam.org/Front/Index/featured%5Fset%5Fid/1718?ref=hyperallergic.com).

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2017/06/bamarchives05.jpg)

The Leon Levy BAM Digital Archive (screenshot by the author for Hyperallergic)

As BAM regularly hosts international companies and local artists at its complex of theaters in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, the material presented by the archive is diverse. You can watch [a 1973 excerpt](http://levyarchive.bam.org/Detail/objects/5433?ref=hyperallergic.com) from Robert Wilson’s *The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin*, or read an ad for the [1913 lecture](http://levyarchive.bam.org/Detail/objects/915?ref=hyperallergic.com) by Helen Keller (with support from her teacher Anne E. Sullivan). There’s also a great history of the visual arts in BAM’s productions, such as 1970 photographs of [Isamu Noguchi’s sets](https://hyperallergic.com/a-tactile-tour-of-isamu-noguchi-and-martha-grahams-1940s-dance-sets/) for [Martha Graham Dance Company’s *Appalachian Spring*](http://levyarchive.bam.org/Detail/occurrences/202?ref=hyperallergic.com). Other images show Robert Rauschenberg and Donald Judd’s [1980s collaborations with the Trisha Brown Company](http://levyarchive.bam.org/Detail/occurrences/6?ref=hyperallergic.com), and [the hand-painted backdrop](https://hyperallergic.com/a-1944-dali-backdrop-gets-its-own-surreal-circus/) by Salvador Dali showcased in [the 2016 *La Verità* circus](http://levyarchive.bam.org/Detail/occurrences/16068?ref=hyperallergic.com) from Compagnia Finzi Pasca. A collaboration between Keith Haring and Bill T. Jones — the [1984 *Secret Pastures*](http://levyarchive.bam.org/Detail/occurrences/15?ref=hyperallergic.com) — involved sets, promo cards, and stickers by Haring. BAM [states](http://levyarchive.bam.org/About/Index?ref=hyperallergic.com) that the archives are “currently housed in Crown Heights, with plans to relocate to a state-of-the-art facility on the BAM campus in 2018,” with the digitization offering new accessibility to researchers and the public.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2017/06/bamarchives01.jpg)

Illustration of the Brooklyn and Long Island Sanitary Fair at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (1864) (courtesy BAM Archives)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2017/06/bamarchives03.jpg)

Detail from Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences Bulletin advertising Sarah Bernhardt “in repertoire” during the 1916 fall season (courtesy BAM Archives)

[*Leon Levy BAM Digital Archive*](http://levyarchive.bam.org/?ref=hyperallergic.com) *is available online through the Brooklyn Academy of Music.*