Museum of Performance & Design

The Museum of Performance and Design began in 1947 inside the private home of Russell Hartley, a dancer and costume designer for the San Francisco Ballet. Hartley spent his spare time scavenging through secondhand shops and traveling to Europe to acquire rare dance artifacts. His personal obsession evolved into the San Francisco Dance Archives, a public resource he grew from his own living room before it eventually expanded to encompass the entire breadth of the city's performing arts history.