Social Media Stand-Outs: Five dance artists to follow
By Rachel Silver Maddock
Social media became a lifeline for many dance artists during the pandemic, giving them a virtual stage to keep their work alive and to connect with their communities. Now more than ever, establishing an online presence is key to staying active in the global dance community.
But what makes a dancer stand out on a platform like Instagram, where so many things compete for our attention?
These five dance artists from around the globe — Divya Ravi, Sylvain Émard, Kristián Mensa, Patricia Zhou and Mathilde Gilhet — use the platform a little bit differently, offering something unique that goes beyond surface level. With creative flair, they are getting others involved, finding a way to communicate their values through their posts, and (of course) doing some fantastic dancing.
Divya Ravi @dancingdivyaravi
Divya Ravi, a Bharatanatyam practitioner and choreographer based in the UK, populates her Instagram with video excerpts of traditional repertoire. Wearing colourful costumes that pop against a white background, her posts make for mesmerizing eye-candy as she moves in perfect synch with the music.
Ravi sometimes chooses natural locations to support the story she tells through movement. In one post, she improvises in front of a white cherry tree to a song by Indian composer A.R. Rahmann that speaks of “white flowers, birds and sun rays.”
The physical precision and engaging facial expressions of Bharatanatyam read strongly over video. Ravi leans into the storytelling by pairing her posts with captions of poetry or reflections on the narrative of the piece, sometimes adding English subtitles to the song to which she is dancing. Even for those unfamiliar with the form, it’s easy to get drawn into the emotional expression of the characters she embodies, whose experiences of joy or grief communicate something ageless and universal.
Along with more performative offerings, Ravi uses her account to engage with the international dance community — raising awareness about festivals and other dance events, and hosting workshops to support social causes.
Kristián Mensa @mr.kriss
Based in London, originally from Prague, Kristián Mensa is an acclaimed Bboy, experimental dance artist and illustrator. His Instagram is filled with whimsical, entertaining and often uplifting illustrations built around ordinary objects like fruit, vegetables and household items. Over email, Mensa explained that he uses ink on paper and digital tools like Photoshop or Procreate to make them.
Interspersed on his page are dance clips of Mensa’s incredibly flexible movement — a floppy-leg style of breaking that unexpectedly arrives at impressively agile freezes and tricks. Excerpts from the Red Bull Dance Your Style World Finals in 2019 (in which Mensa was a semi-finalist) speak for themselves.
Mensa’s digital presence uniquely pairs dancing and drawing, and there is an element of illusion in both. At times, his movement looks impossible or at least dangerous, making it thrilling to watch. In his illustrations, it can take a few moments for the viewer to “get it” (sometimes blurring your vision can help).
With his content, he consistently puts forward a positive message. In one drawing, a cartoon charger reassures a low-battery iPhone, saying, “I am here for you,” and is captioned, “Things we should say more often.” In his dancing, Mensa’s easy smile never betrays the difficulty of the moves he is doing.
Sylvain Émard @sylvainemarddanse
Since 2009, Montreal-based dancer and choreographer Sylvain Émard has been working with larger and larger groups of non-professional dancers in an ambitious project called Le Grand Continental. His company, Sylvain Émard Danse, has involved over 3000 participants from all over the world in more than 21 editions of the show, combining line dancing and contemporary dance in accessible, joyful choreographies. The casts have ranged from 65 dancers at the 2009 world premiere to 375 dancers in Montreal in 2017.
During the pandemic, Émard found a way to carry on his company’s vision to explore “the territory of human nature through the force and strength of the body,” engaging over 500 participants with the remote Le Grand Continental — Living Room Style, in 2020, which is now in its second edition, Le Grand Continental 3.0. Émard, who has a cheery online presence, held rehearsals over Facebook Live, posting afterwards to Instagram, and then collected videos from a simultaneous remote performance to produce a video project that shows a mosaic of dancing bodies from far and wide. The film of the 2021 edition is currently underway.
To celebrate the company’s 30th anniversary — which was actually last year, postponed to 2021 due to the pandemic, and made virtual — Émard also initiated Suite 3.0, a dance relay where participants post 15-second phrases and invite their friends to add to the chain over Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. Émard, a well-established dancer and choreographer with a large body of work, is finding innovative digital ways to continue to mobilize and bring people together through dance.
Patricia Zhou @patriciazhou
In March 2020, Patricia Zhou began holding professional-level ballet classes daily over Instagram Live, both to keep herself dancing and to support other dance artists amidst the pandemic lockdown. Zhou, a skilled mover who has danced with London’s Royal Ballet, Staatsballett Berlin and L.A. Dance Project, quickly increased her following by the thousands through these high-quality classes that were filling a need for dancers all over the world. In those early days of the pandemic, the classes virtually marketed themselves through multiple blog posts recommending them.
After months of providing virtual classes by donation, Zhou decided to develop a more sustainable model for herself by creating a formal teaching platform through her website that is subscription-based. She now offers different levels of ballet and pointe on Zoom with a limited number of students, which allows her to give personal feedback.
What started as a generous pandemic offering has become a great business opportunity for Zhou, formerly based in Los Angeles, now in London. She also uses her teaching platform to support her other independent projects, which include dancing, choreography and movement direction for various companies.
Mathilde Gilhet @mathildegilhet
Switzerland-based contemporary dance artist Mathilde Gilhet creates short floor work tricks for her Instagram account based on inspiration from daily life, encouraging fellow dancers to “Try it out!” She names each move and captions the post with interesting facts about the subject that seem to reflect the quirkiness of the movement. These sequences make for great snappy digital content — short, clever and often difficult to execute.
One post, the Praying Mantis, features Gilhet wearing bright green pants and step-hopping across the dance floor, wrapping her knees around her arms with each motion.
Over email, Gilhet says she chooses her subjects intentionally to give visibility to stories, facts and new initiatives that she believes deserve to be better known. The French dancer, currently with Luzerner Theater, has worked with a number of companies in Europe and North America and has also taught widely.
During the pandemic, she started her own organization, the WE Program, to support the global dance community. Through WE, Gilhet teaches low-cost virtual dance workshops and uses the money to support other dance artists pursuing artistic projects. This “self-sustainable” initiative, in her own words, allows the global dance community to support itself. During the pandemic, she’s raised over $5200 Euros and awarded four WE-Awards to support dance projects in India, Switzerland, Hong Kong and Italy.
