Museum of Performance + Design, Art museum and archive in Bayview District, San Francisco, United States.
The Museum of Performance + Design is an archive and gallery that collects costumes, stage designs, and recordings of performances created in the San Francisco Bay Area. The collection spans decades of theater, dance, and opera productions from the region.
A dancer and designer named Russell Hartley started a dance archive in 1947 to document the work of performers he knew. The project eventually grew to include materials from theater, opera, and other performing arts.
The museum holds costumes and stage designs that tell the story of how performers shaped local arts over generations. These objects show what matters to the communities that created and watched these performances.
The archive is open for visiting and research, with the ability to schedule time to look through collections. Many photographs and recordings are also available online, making it possible to explore materials from any location.
The collection includes materials from the Gold Rush era, showing how theater and performance developed in California's early days. These documents connect the arts to the region's frontier heritage in unexpected ways.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 60,000 contributors worldwide.
