  With the advent of efficient near-IR spectrometers on 10m-class telescopes,
exploiting the new generation of low readout noise, large format detectors, OH
avoidance and sub-arcsecond seeing, 1-2.4 micron spectroscopy is becoming a key
means of obtaining detailed galaxy dynamics and for studies of high-z galaxies.
In the following we present the results of three recent IR spectroscopy studies
on the dynamics of ULIRG mergers, super star clusters in the Antennae, and on
the properties of the rotation curves of z~1 disk galaxies, carried out with
ISAAC on the VLT and NIRSPEC on the Keck.
