Why You Should Stop Watching Dance Videos

Ah, the internet age.  It seems every dance performance ever recorded is at our fingertips. It’s tempting, even addicting to watch everything we can get our hands on. We voraciously consume performances, competitions, classes and interviews with our favorite dancers in order to get closer to what we aspire to.

And why shouldn’t we? They’re the best! They’re the ones that are showing us how we should be if we want to be successful. Showing us what our glorious future as a professional dancer is going to be like! Right?

Wrong.

Your life as a professional dancer is going to belong to you alone. Your story will be unique. Therefore, to be truly successful as an artist, you need to find out who you are and what you can bring to dance that no one else can.

It is difficult to truly understand yourself if you are constantly consuming information about other dancers and choreographers. Who they are and what they are doing can blunt or erase your own ideas about dance as an art form. It can dilute who you really are as an artist, hiding the qualities that make you you.

The Danger:

When I was five years old I took tap classes and loved it. For a few years after that, I would come home almost every day after school, put on the radio (yep, we listened to the radio in those days) and dance around in the family room. Inspired by the music and the way it made me feel, I would move naturally. I loved it.

Later, when I started taking “serious” dance classes, the ideas of the ballet world started to get inside my head, affecting my thoughts about dance. My body wasn’t right, my technique wasn’t good enough, I worried I didn’t have access to the best training, and on and on.

None of this was true. None of these ideas were even mine. They were put into my head by dance magazines, books, videos, and some teachers.

I had started down a rabbit hole that I would be stuck in for many, many years. A hole that contained almost every idea and belief about dancing but my own.

The Damage:

Years later, during my professional career, it began to dawn on me that something was off. At that point I had taught thousands of hours, been performing for years, choreographed more pieces than I could remember and had owned two studios. Even though I had success, something wasn’t right.

I was watching a video of competitive latin dancing when it hit me.

I didn’t like this. I didn’t actually like the dancing I was watching. And I was a professional latin dancer! It was as if I just popped out of someone else’s head, a head I’d been living in for decades that wasn’t even mine.

That moment began a long journey of recovery as a dancer and artist.

The Recovery:

At some point in the past, watching dance became about copying what others were doing instead of something meant to inspire my own artistry.

As a result of always looking at what others were doing I had suppressed so many things that were special about me that there was almost nothing left.

Watching lots of dancing online was polluting my own ideas about dance. I could feel it happening in real time, the visual information overwriting my own creative ideas. Other people’s “supposed to’s” were sneaking into my head. When I realized this, I began to lose interest in others’ dancing and gain interest in my own.

But who was I as an artist? I had to find out.

The process of artistic rehabilitation took me quite some time. I discovered many things about myself, almost none of which I was doing in my career at the time. Once I found my artistic identity, my career took a completely different path.

You can avoid my mistakes. In order to be fulfilled as an artist, you must find out not only who you are, but how you define success.

How To Find Your Artistic Identity

Return to the Beginning

What is it that inspired you to dance in the first place? How old were you? Where were you? What was it that you thought or saw that made you want to dance? Was it a specific person? Maybe it was a TV show or a live dance performance. What about it communicated to you? What did it communicate? Write it down. Try to get the concepts of what made you want to be a dancer.

For example: The TV show “Solid Gold” inspired me to become a dancer. The musical artists and costumes communicated to me. They communicated that dance could be done to popular songs of the day. The songs were enhanced by the dancing.

Make An Inspiration List

Make a list of everything artistic you’ve been inspired by in your life. This could be videos, live performances, teachers, places, etc. They do not all have to be dance related, but you should keep it to things that have been very inspiring to you. List the major ones. They should have communicated to you somehow and been inspiring in that they made you feel like creating artistically.

For example: I’ve been inspired by many types of artistic works. A common thread is that I’m inspired by art that contains a strong story within it. These works made me want to create choreography of my own.

Watch Your Own Dancing

Watch videos that you like of yourself dancing. If possible, watch videos of yourself doing improv. Try to watch these videos with a “beginner’s mind”. Notice what attracts you about your own dancing. Try to do this without using the ideas the dance world instilled into you. This can be difficult, so try it many times until you can get a clear idea of what you like about your dancing. Write each thing down until you feel satisfied with your list.

Ponder, Ponder, Ponder

Take the first list and clarify what it was that made you want to dance. If many of the items had a similar theme or idea, then get the first three major ideas from that list and write them down. This is the foundation of who you are as an artist.

Take the second list and look for similarities between the items you wrote down. Really take the time to look for similar themes and ideas that are being communicated in the second list. This contains clues as to your future direction as an artist.

Take the third list and compare it to the first two. If there are things on it that are different than the first two, see if they are things that are truly “you” or not. If not, then try to determine where your influences may have come from and see if they should be eliminated or changed. If the differences you see are true to you as an artist, then celebrate that you have discovered more about your personal artistic identity.

This Is Just The Beginning

The purpose of watching dancing online should be to inspire. It should help you move towards your goals and inspire you to move towards your artistic ideals, not the ideals imposed upon you by someone else.

In a later post we’ll talk about creating your artistic persona, or identity, in order to help you stand out. For now, you’ve taken a big step forward in discovering more about yourself as an artist and dancer. You’re that much closer to creating a persona that will stand out and which is truly you.

Coming Soon: Courses in dance artistry that will make watching your dancing a jawdropping experience! Until then get on the list for real dance data that will increase your joy, fulfillment, and income from dance.