Dance is not just about who can kick the highest, do the most insane tricks, or perform the most pirouettes. It is about the feeling that you get when you dance. All of your emotions just take over.
This kind of performance is all about desire. We want to capture something true to our reality, and we want the audience to feel and understand it too. We have lots of emotions to portray, so our dance routines can be as complex as we are, but one emotion stands out right now: yearning. Yearning—that soft, aching, almost-beautiful feeling of wanting something you can’t quite reach—is capturing the attention of Gen Z as they grow up and try to navigate their futures in an increasingly digital, mindless age.
While yearning might be your reality, it can also be the superpower to take your dancing from average to unforgettable.
What is yearning in dance?
This is an emotion that isn’t bold or dramatic. Yearning is born of interiority. We think about and imagine the object of our desire over and over again. Yearning is raw and honest. Bringing it to life is tricky! You can’t just dance to the music if you want to pull this off. Connect with what you are dancing to and why you are doing it. You are trying to make the audience feel the emotions that you are feeling. They need to feel that thin barrier between something being a reality and being impossible enough to ache for.
Start with a real feeling (not just acting)
Here’s the thing. You can’t fake emotions and still expect them to resonate with people. Instead of telling yourself, “Okay, this is the part I look sad,” try to actually feel it. Embody real emotion. For yearning, think about someone you miss or a moment in your life when you wanted something so badly it ate at you. You want the lyrics to feel like they’re pouring out of you. The more personal and relatable you make the performance for yourself, the more that is going to shine through to the audience.
Slow down (like… more than you think)
Yearning is all about those smaller moments. It is typical for dancers to feel as though they need to rush through their choreography to get timing right, but if you want the audience to feel something, then you need to slow it down. It is hard to feel sadness if it is being rushed. If you have a moment where you reach, make it last longer. Blend your transitions into each other. Using yearning to add depth to a routine is all about drawing things out instead of rushing into them.
Remember: Hold onto a moment for longer than you have to. That slight drag in the story makes it feel more special and makes your audience dwell with you.
Use your eyes—they tell the whole story
Have you ever heard someone say, “The eyes are a window into the soul”? Your eyes speak as much as your body does, sometimes more. They always tell the truth about what you are really feeling. If you want to convince your audience of yearning, make your eye contact intentional. Don’t just stare at the judges the entire time. Make it seem as though you are searching for something throughout your dance. You’ll encourage the audience to watch and wonder if they are searching for it too.