Video recordings are one of the most significant traces of performing arts. They are fundamental for research but also for teaching the history of contemporary theater. Today, many artists post them on YouTube or Vimeo. Nevertheless, the profusion and availability of videos do not prevent the fact that it is still important to comment and explain them in a close reading approach. This presentation will focus first on MemoRekall, a free and open-source web app to annotate a video by adding notes, documents, or web links. Today, the thousands of performing arts video recordings and the advances in computer vision carry out the promise of « distant viewing ». In a second step, this presentation will present state of the art in distant viewing for video analysis and its potential for performing arts. Finally, it will explore how computer vision renews traditional questions of performing arts studies and raises new research questions.