What It's Really Like When Your Video Goes Viral

Ever dream of having one of your dance videos go viral online? The experience may not be all that you expect. Four dance artists reflect on their sudden fame after their videos became online sensations:

Kirk Henning
is a company member at Richmond Ballet. You’ve seen Henning and his groomsmen dancing for fellow company member Valerie Tellmann-Henning as a surprise at their wedding reception.

“After the wedding, our videographer asked, ‘Do you mind if I put this online?’ The YouTube video got 7 million hits, and then Jay Towers, a morning radio DJ in Detroit, put it on his Facebook page, where it’s been viewed more than 120 million times. Answering phone calls and emails became my full-time job. That was the hardest thing: The demands on my time, which came out of nowhere, from every angle.

I didn’t apply for rights to any of the music I used because I didn’t expect it to go viral. Sony Music Entertainment had the video taken down for the longest time. This experience has made us look more closely at contracts, for sure. Now I’m more likely to say, ‘Can we talk about this clause?’

Valerie and I were both surprised to be getting so much attention, but it was fun to ride it out together. The dance was done as a gift to her, so it was nice to have it last that much longer, and be so much bigger than I thought it would be.”

Homer Hans Bryant
is founder and artistic director of Chicago Multi-Cultural Dance Center and a former member of Dance Theatre of Harlem. You’ve seen Bryant’s students practicing “hiplet,” his own blend of hip hop and pointework.

“I’d been posting videos for two years, of all of the kinds of classes we offer, when the Facebook page Só Bailarinos posted our hiplet class video. It got 8 million views there. BuzzFeed picked it up and that story received 25 million. We went on ‘Good Morning America,’ then came back to Chicago and did ‘Good Day Chicago’ and ‘Windy City Live.’ We’ve done the ‘Steve Harvey‘ show and gone to New York for a big Vogue thing with Anna Wintour, we did a video for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, and I gave a TEDx Talk in San Francisco. About 15 production companies have contacted us wanting to do a reality show.

The reactions we get are from one end of the spectrum to the other, from ‘You’re ruining their feet. This is not what classical ballet is all about!’ to ‘This is incredible!’ and ‘I wish I had this when I was studying ballet; I wouldn’t have hated it so much.’ What I’m managing to do is to keep the kids centered, grounded and focused. The parents can’t believe what’s going on.”

Alexandra Beller
is a choreographer and artistic director of Alexandra Beller/Dances. You’ve seen Beller’s son Ivo, at age 14 months, “leading” her company’s dancers in rehearsal as part of the process for an ensemble work titled milkdreams.

“The nature of virality is that it escapes you. By the time you realize it’s happening, there’s not a ton you can do about it. When something goes viral, that is all you are, for millions of people. I don’t say, ‘Hi! I’m Alexandra Beller, from the viral baby video,’ but that’s what I ‘am.’ I spent 22 years in the dance world. I danced for Bill T. Jones, I’ve had a company for 15 years. But at this point, that one video has gathered more than a billion views. It gets very skewed in terms of representation and, for me, it’s led me to become more focused on curation, where I’m being much more thoughtful about what I put out there.'”

Erik Cavanaugh
is a former student at Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania. You’ve seen Cavanaugh’s improvised solos to songs such as “Eye of the Needle,” by Sia, and Rachel Platten’s “Stand by You.”

“The day after my birthday I got a notification that @worldwidedance started following me on Instagram. Maybe 20 minutes later, everything was blowing up. Hundreds and hundreds of likes and new followers. I thought, What just happened?

By that night, my video had already been viewed more than 100,000 times on Worldwidedance’s Facebook page. The New York Post ran a video of me the next morning and it broke 1 million views—then 2, then 3… Now it’s at, like, 10.8 million views. Forbes magazine messaged me. People magazine and The Huffington Post reached out. I was on the website for the ‘Today‘ show and on mic.com. The Radio City Rockettes named me ‘Dancer of the Week.’ The New York Post flew me out to New York for a live segment, which was fun. I said ‘yes’ to all of it.

I’m very happy that this happened. It helped me gain confidence about who I am. I think people are opening their eyes a bit more that dance is not just for a slimmer body type, and I think I’m helping move that conversation to a better place. I didn’t always have the courage to keep going through discouragement in my younger days, and I’d love to be able to give that to people.”