A small, slow collection
lovedancing
a place to find incredible performances by both professionals and ordinary people — to remind us movement can be something close to holy.
BeginChandelier Sia, danced by Maddie Ziegler — 2014
An eleven-year-old just performed an entire human life in three minutes and forty-three seconds.A viewer, somewhere on the internet
Sometimes the body knows things the rest of us are still learning to say.
The Dying Swan Lil Buck & Yo‑Yo Ma — Spike Jonze, 2011
He is not dancing to the cello. He is the cello.From the comments
Diversity Britain's Got Talent Final — 2009
I've watched this maybe a hundred times across seventeen years and I still hold my breath at the same moment.A long-time viewer
And sometimes it isn't about being the best. It's just about being there, at the same time, with everyone else.
Where the Hell is Matt? Matt Harding & friends across the world — 2012
It's just people. Just people, dancing badly together, and somehow it's the most hopeful thing I've ever seen.A viewer in 2024
Sometimes a person dances not to be seen. Sometimes they dance to survive.
Take Me to Church Sergei Polunin — directed by David LaChapelle, 2015
He made this as a goodbye to ballet. He was twenty-five and done. Watch what it looks like when someone thinks they're dancing for the very last time.A viewer, 2015
And there are moments when an entire people remembers, all at once, what it is.
Riverdance Michael Flatley & Jean Butler — Eurovision Song Contest, Dublin, 1994
I was nine years old in my sitting room in Limerick when this came on the telly. I am fifty now and I still cannot explain what happened to me that night.From the comments, thirty years later
Revelations Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater — choreographed 1960
I pressed play not knowing what this was. Twenty minutes later I was sitting with my face in my hands — not sad exactly, just opened up. Like a window I didn't know was closed.A first-time viewer
Two people. A bench. A distance that cannot be crossed, and a love that crosses it anyway.
The Bench Travis Wall & Heidi Groskreutz — choreographed by Mia Michaels, 2006
The moment he reaches for her hand through the bench slats. I have to pause every time. Every single time.From the comments
Singin' in the Rain Gene Kelly — 1952
He isn't performing. He's just being exactly what he was made to be.From the comments
Some people don't dance for an audience. They dance because something inside them simply won't stay still.
Billie Jean Michael Jackson — Motown 25, 1983
You can see the exact second the audience realises what they're witnessing. And then they lose their minds.A viewer, from the comments
Stormy Weather Fayard & Harold Nicholas — 1943
Fred Astaire called it the greatest dance number ever filmed. He was not wrong. No one has ever been more right.From the comments
And sometimes two people find a language that belongs only to them.
Best For Last Keone & Mari — 2014
I've never seen two people be so completely, unguardedly in love — with each other and with this.A viewer, from the comments
And there are mornings when an entire station forgets where it was going.
Do Re Mi 200 strangers — Antwerp Central Station, 2009
They arrived as commuters. Then the music started. Then the whole building remembered what it was to be human.A viewer, from the comments
Les Twins Laurent & Larry Bourgeois — World of Dance, 2017
They're not performing. They're having a conversation — in a language that doesn't exist anywhere else on earth.From the comments, World of Dance 2017
Some bodies were built to remind the rest of us what a body can be.
Don Quixote & Giselle Mikhail Baryshnikov — American Ballet Theatre, 1977–1983
He isn't moving through space. Space is rearranging itself around him.A viewer, from the comments
And sometimes the most extraordinary thing is just to be in the room when it happens.
Here It Goes Again OK Go — filmed in one take, 2006
Four men, eight treadmills, one take. I've watched this approximately four hundred times since 2006 and I still can't quite believe they pulled it off.A viewer, from the comments
Sometimes two people find a silence so complete, the rest of the world just slips away.
Dancing in the Dark Fred Astaire & Cyd Charisse — The Band Wagon, 1953
They are not dancing to impress each other. They already are each other.A viewer, from the comments
Some feelings are too large for words. A body, then, becomes the only honest thing.
Lamentation Martha Graham — filmed at Bennington College, 1943
She isn't dancing grief. She has become it. The cloth is the only thing keeping it inside.From the comments
And sometimes a body is so alive with something, it looks almost dangerous to watch.
Flamenco Joaquín Cortés — directed by Carlos Saura, 1995
You don't learn to dance like this. You inherit it. He's dancing every ancestor he ever had.A viewer, from the comments
And sometimes the whole mystery of being human is just two people, reaching, barely touching.
Café Müller Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch — created 1978
I have watched this many times and I still cannot decide if it is about love or the loss of it. Maybe that's exactly the point.A first-time viewer, from the comments
Keep dancing.
In the kitchen. At the wedding. Alone in the hallway at two in the morning. It counts. All of it counts.