International Dance Day

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As every 29th of April comes around, we are reminded of the importance of dance. This year’s message comes from Crystal Pite:

Humans move, our arms reach out, our knees collapse, our heads nod, our chests cave in, our backs arch. We jump, we shrug, we clench our fists; we lift each other up and push each other away. This is language as much as it is action. This is what the body has to say about need, defeat, courage, despair, desire, joy, ambivalence, frustration, and love. These images resonate with meaning because we have felt these things so deeply in our bodies; we have been moved.

We are all dancers. Life moves us; life dances us. Ephemeral as breath, yet solid as bone, a dance is made of us. We sculpt space. We write with our bodies in a wordless language that is profoundly understood. When we dance, we bring grace to the space within and around us.

Like life, a dance creates and destroys itself in every moment. Like love, it exists beyond reason.

I like to think of the body as a place, a location where being is held and shaped. When we dance, we are fully engaged in inhabiting that place.

I am writing this in early 2026, at a time when there seems to be no end to the oppression, upheaval, and suffering in our world. Each day, we witness the horrors humans are capable of inflicting on one another and the systems of power that sustain violence against people and the planet. In such a context, dance can feel like a fragile, even inadequate response. It is difficult to imagine what a dance artist can offer in a world that so urgently needs change and healing.

And yet, art, like hope, is a form of love. Defiantly generative in the face of destruction, art softens what has hardened and soothes what is wounded. It creates a space where we can grapple with questions together, differently from news, education, opinion, or protest, yet not separate from them.

Through creativity, we build resistance and nurture hope through small acts of courage, curiosity, kindness, and collaboration. In dance, and in the making of dance, we find proof that humanity is more than its most recent heartbreak.

But dance needs no justification. It is made of us, yet owes us nothing. It asks only for a willing body. From there, it can give form to the ineffable, acting as a bridge between us and the unknown.

We are moved by these fleeting moments of beauty. And as we embody both the dance and its disappearance, we are reminded of our impermanence. Yet if we pay attention, dance can also offer us a glimpse of the soul.

-Canadian choreographer Crystal Pite is a former company member of Ballet British Columbia and William Forsythe’s Ballett Frankfurt.

And the official message by the International Dance Council:

Competition is the heartbeat of sports, but in the arts it is very marginal—which is normal. While athletic excellence is easily measured, artistic merit is notoriously difficult to quantify.

      As young dancers increasingly seek titles to distinguish themselves, competitions have proliferated, but unlike strictly regulated sports championships, dance competitions remain unchecked.   

      Our priority is protecting dancers and the teachers who prepare them. To ensure a “winner” title carries genuine weight, organizers must adhere to universal standards. The **International Dance Council** has issued these essential guidelines:

– Liability: Full insurance coverage and a legally responsible person must be identified.- Transparency: Jury members, competitors, and winners must be listed publicly.
– Integrity: Rules must guarantee neutrality and fair play; the organizer should not appoint the jury.
– Fairness: Categories should be based on years of training, not age.
– Validation: No winner should be declared in categories with fewer than 10 competitors.

When competitions are oversaturated and titles are handed out too freely, winning loses its value and competing becomes a trap.

As much as performing, teaching, or creating dance should remain totally free, competing should be effectively regulated. This year, Dance Day is dedicated to the urgent regulation of competitions.

 

       Prof. Dr. Alkis Raftis

        President of the International Dance Council

         CID, UNESCO, Paris

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Keep dancing—
whether or not you are perfect,
whether or not you are trained.

Let your soul speak
What words cannot hold.

Dance is more than a hobby—
it is a language without borders,
a way of living,
a breath drawn deep into being,
a feeling that moves before thought.

So don’t quiet it.
Don’t hold it back.

Let your body remember
what your heart has always known—
and never let your heartbeat
forget how to dance.

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