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Performance
see all genres ›One of the biggest attractions from cinema's earliest days was its ability to record great live performances and, with the arrival of sound, that extended to live musical ones, too.
Discover Performance Films
Genres / Music / Performance
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Ain't She Sweet
19th century song pluggers in vaudeville theaters and in the streets invited audiences to join in the chorus; this tradition of participation appeared in movie theaters by the mid-teens. When sound arrived, Fleischer Studios' delightful "Screen Songs" added witty animated prologues and celebrity singers to prepare the...Start your free trial to watch
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Between Resistance and Community
BETWEEN RESISTANCE AND COMMUNITY focuses on a group of kids who have built a community around a love of music and a passion for creating an alternative to dominant consumerist society. By putting on shows in basements, booking and traveling on national tours and releasing their own records, these kids...Start your free trial to watch
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Black and Tan
RCA produced BLACK AND TAN to showcase its Photophone sound system. Director Dudley Murphy collaborated with Fernand Leger on BALLET MECANIQUE in 1924 and seasons this film with avant-garde sequences while also telling a story. The late Karl Emil Knudsen, well-known Danish producer of jazz records, purchased the original...Start your free trial to watch
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Black and White Trypps no.3
The third part in a series of films dealing with naturally-derived psychedelia. Shot during a performance by Rhode Island noise band Lightning Bolt, this film documents the transformation of a rock audience's collective freak-out into a trance ritual of the highest spiritual order.Start your free trial to watch
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Busking the System
BUSKING THE SYSTEM focuses in on the very different lives of several subway musicians in New York City. We follow three fresh-faced musicians from Kansas City, MO, Seattle, WA and Cleveland, OH on their journey to see if they can make it in the New York subway and launch their career. Will they discover...Start your free trial to watch
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The Fantasticks
Eight times a week, from 1960 to 2002, the Sullivan Street Playhouse in New York City’s Greenwich Village played midwife to a musical theater ritual that attracted theatergoers from across the globe. That show was the legendary and beloved "Fantasticks" and for 42 years and 17,162 performances, a legion of performers,...Start your free trial to watch
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Glastonbury Fayre
In the summer of 1971 the Glastonbury legend was born when the organizers decided to try and create a festival that would be a forerunner for an "alternative and utopian society." The festival encompassed Midsummer's Day, and in true medieval tradition, the area of Worthy Farm, Pilton was given over to...Start your free trial to watch
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Gogol Bordello Non-Stop
A vibrant chronicle of one of today’s most notorious and revered live bands, GOGOL BORDELLO NON-STOP follows Eugene Hütz’s gypsy-punk brigade around the world as they spread their liberating libertine musical gospel. Filmmaker Margarita Jimeno tracks their raucous gigs from 2001 to 2006, from NYC to Italy,...Start your free trial to watch
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Kick That Habit
KICK THAT HABIT is a film created in the bleak eastern region of Switzerland. At first, a group plays a game of mini-golf, then the Swiss musicians Voice Crack (Norbert Möslang and Andy Guhl) rehearse in the studio, afterward heading up to Alpstein, at which point you are right in the middle of a concert, next stepping away...Start your free trial to watch
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Kiki and Herb at the Knitting Factory
Justin Bond and Kenny Mellman are KIKI AND HERB, worldwide smash punk rebel entertainers, cabaret outsiders and subversive pop stars who rock all over the world. Join the Tony-nominated duo for their first-ever captured-on-video performance from the Knitting Factory in New York City. Featuring fifteen...Start your free trial to watch
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Louis Armstrong in Copenhagen
After a decade performing in and recording with the top hot jazz bands of New Orleans, Chicago and New York, legendary trumpeter and vocalist Louis Armstrong moved to Los Angeles in 1930, and then toured Europe. Armstrong's work in this period remains a foundation stone in all of jazz history. These three...Start your free trial to watch
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La Marseillaise
By 1907, sound experimenter Georges Mendel had devised a system to assure synchronization by mechanically interlocking phonograph and projector. The film was shot to playback but amplification of the acoustic recording remained a significant limitation. Here, M. Note of the Paris Opera sings "La Marseillaise" in 1908.Start your free trial to watch
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Radi-Ators
RADI-ATORS presents the Utica Jubilee Singers, students at Utica (Mississippi) Normal and Industrial Institute. Their choral arrangements were published as sheet music and recorded on Victor records; the Singers also toured Europe in 1927-28 before making this 1929 film, restored in 1992 from a 35mm silent positive and its...Start your free trial to watch
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Rosie the Riveter
Ancestors of music videos, YANKEE DOODLER, ROSIE THE RIVETER, and DEAR ARABELLA were made during World War II for coin-operated jukebox devices found in restaurants, bars and train stations. On built-in glass screens, they projected 16mm films of artists performing popular tunes. These examples, although...Start your free trial to watch
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Still Swingin'
Laughter may be the best medicine, but Western Swing music undoubtedly comes in a very close second as documented in STILL SWINGIN', a documentary that traces the history of Western Swing music as well as legendary singer Bob Wills' pivotal role in keeping this unique musical form alive for generations. A musical phenomenon...Start your free trial to watch
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Todd P Goes to Austin
Featuring unforgettable live performances from High Places, Matt & Kim, Dan Deacon, Mika Miko, the Death Set and many more. As record labels die, independents thrive. In the wake of Napster, MySpace and Facebook there is a generation of artists creating and performing music on their own terms. With the...Start your free trial to watch
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X: The Unheard Music
The iconic L.A. band X changed the face of punk music with their vibrant, original style. We see the band at its peak in this legendary film, which took five years to make. As vital today as the day it was released twenty-five years ago, X: THE UNHEARD MUSIC, preserved by the Sundance Collection as a...Start your free trial to watch
