Anouk Kruithof – Universal Tongue

Twerking, Vogue, Fortnite, flash mobs, a Sufi or musical chairs: YouTube is full of videos of people dancing. And more dance videos are added every minute. Artist Anouk Kruithof, together with 52 researchers from all over the world, researched dance videos on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Together they found 1,000 dance styles in 196 countries and they are bundled in Universal Tongue. This 4-hour video installation is spread over 8 screens and contains a total of no less than 32 hours of found footage, arranged by rhythm and the number of dancers.

Artist Anouk Kruithof is fascinated by dance as a form of self-expression and empowerment. She explored how dance has evolved throughout history as part of our global media culture, and how dance manifests itself online through social media platforms. Together with a team of 52 researchers from all over the world, Anouk collected more than 8,800 dance videos that can be found on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Each entered the same search terms, and because of their geographical distribution, the researchers came up with different search results—from the abakúa  from Cuba and the Argentine tango to the Zimbabwean sungura and the zwiefacher from Germany.

In total, Anouk and her team found 1,000 dance styles in 196 countries and selected about 250 hours of dance videos. In the video installation Universal Tongue, Kruithof shows that dance is actually a universal language, spoken by different subcultures, spread virally and traveling across all cultural boundaries.