Dancing is hotter than ever ... on TV

TV dance taking the place of live dance?
The downside is that people are sitting around watching dance on TV instead of attending shows live in the theater, where it’s meant to be performed, says Dyane Harvey Salaam, a dance professor at Princeton University who runs her own company.

For her, the TV shows fill a void that is disappearing in the dance world: They offer new dancers a taste of what life is like in a company, something many new dancers won’t experience as smaller companies with financial troubles fold around the country.

“What these shows have replaced is what we no longer have — a large support for the arts,” she says. “The government no longer supports the arts, they’re not fed like they were.”

But the trend has been positive for studios and schools around the country, because TV reality dance shows have forced many an American off the sofa and into dance classes.

“We’ve seen a big increase in interest since the shows went on air,” says Diane King, director of Broadway Dance Center in New York. Classes for hip-hop are packed, and the studio in the heart of New York’s Theater District has opened later classes in the evenings to accommodate the increased interest in dance during the past few years. “It’s really been great for business.”

Dance Center teacher Shane Sparx appeared on “So You Think You Can Dance,” and has toured the country with the center’s Pulse Tour, a workshop offering four days of intense dance training. King said the tour is selling out in every city.

“Our dancers are becoming almost like celebrities themselves,” she says.

Kate Carol, who runs Kate Carol Dance in Iowa City, Iowa, says the craze is hot in the Midwest, too.

“There’s been a big difference,” she says. “We’ve done a lot of ballroom classes, and choreographed dances for weddings. Dance is on the brain.”

Even dance pros appreciate TV's spotlight
While professional dancers may snub some of the performances on television, the networks are also trying to get the word out about watching live dance.

“Of course, some of these shows are not for the dance purist,” King says. “But it has such a domino effect on dance and getting people to think about dance — it’s really just fantastic.”

Just ask The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. The New York-based company performed live on “Dancing With The Stars” and “So You Think You Can Dance,” and director Yvette Campbell said the dancers were treated with the utmost respect. Twenty million viewers watched the performance, about as much as has seen the respected company perform in its 50 years in existence. And when the company did its normal tour, seats were packed.

“It’s just incredible for exposure,” she says. Ailey’s touring company has traveled to new cities and sold out shows thanks in part to popularity of the dance shows.

Campbell says the shows also highlight how difficult it is to dance well.

“People know the difference. They see how hard these dancers work and realize that it’s a skill,” she says. “At the same time, it may inspire them to learn something new.”

Even Princeton’s Salaam says that one of her dancers was briefly on “So You Think You Can Dance.” He didn’t make it to the end, but he got an agent shortly after and a gig on Broadway with “Hairspray.”

“A happy ending for him, and hopeful for us,” she says.

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