Dancing through Social Distance: connectivity and creativity in the online space

The mobile app, TikTok originated as a social network with an emphasis upon video sharing (formerly known as “Douyin”, created in China 2016 where Facebook and Instagram were banned). It has been described as ‘a compelling site of contemporary performance’ (Blanco Borelli & Moore 2021: 299) and the videos shared on the app understood as ‘micro-performances’ of ‘daily life, imagination, pleasure and ways of coping with Covid-19 lockdowns happening across the world (ibid, 2021: 300).

This article is concerned with how online spaces such as Tik-Tok provided a means for connection between people during a time where physical proximity was severely disrupted. Susan Kozel’s work (2008, 2010, 2017) around telepresence, ‘spacemaking’ and the recognition that human understanding of proximity and physical connection can exist through mediated spaces supports the overall argument; that Tik-Tok became more than a performative platform and instead functioned as a virtual conduit for social connectivity during the pandemic. The suggestion that mobile media challenges conventional uses of devices through applied elements of performance can be seen in the way in which I understand Tik-Tok and ‘dance challenge’ videos to replicate the social proximity and ‘togetherness’ that dance more traditionally encompasses.

The overall premise of this article is that TikTok is representative of a historical shift in the way in which social communities are constructed, social capital gained and where multiple modes of gratification are achieved. Through exploration of viral trends, I analyse the content of dance-based videos and the characteristics of dance practice and performance that enable modes of social connection to exist. The discussion places dance as a central catalyst for relational closeness via TikTok and its subsequent success in recent years (Vaterlaus and Winter 2021).