International Day of Dance: Why Supporting Dance Means Supporting Humanity

Suvi Honkanen. Photo by Vilhelm Bjersér

On April 29th,  dancers and dance enthusiasts around the world celebrated the International Day of Dance. 

At DanceWorks Helsinki, we started off this spring season with preparing for three new dance works: Romantics, DanceWorlds, and Ilmaa! (Air!) As we contemplate these three works, we are pleased to see that our dream of taking dance to new places and making it inclusive and accessible is a reality. Through Romantics, we are bringing dance to four new cities and into concert halls where lower ticket prices can help challenge the lingering perception of dance as elitist or out of reach. With DanceWorlds as part of ODDfest, we are reaching entirely new audiences while also reimagining how performance itself can be experienced: as an interactive work, it invites spectators not only to watch, but to become part of the performance itself. And with Ilmaa!, a free performance in the heart of Helsinki, we are bringing dance into public space, making it available to anyone who happens to encounter it. Together, these three works reflect not only our artistic ambitions, but our belief that dance belongs everywhere - and to everyone.

Beyond celebration, International Day of Dance creates a pause - a moment to step back from the practical work of creating and producing, and to ask a more fundamental question: why does dance matter in the first place? Why do people dance? What place does dance hold in our world today? How can we better harness the power of dance - not only as performance, but as a source of connection, healing, and social change?

Much of contemporary life takes place in mediated environments. Such a big part of how we communicate doesn’t happen face-to-face, in real time, or through the full range of human expression. Instead, it’s mediated through technology. We interact with others via devices rather than in shared physical space. When we text, post, or even video call, a layer of technology sits between two persons. Communication is often shortened or simplified - messages, captions, emojis, quick reactions. Though efficient, these forms don’t always carry the same depth as full, embodied interaction. 

This is one of the reasons why dance as an art form matters. Digitalized communication is often so partial and reduced compared to the richness of being physically present with someone. Dance at its best is not mediated or filtered. It’s immediate, physical, and multi-layered. It is a moment when one communicates through the whole body, in real time, with others who are sharing the same space. Dance offers something increasingly rare: an experience of presence. It cannot be paused, replayed, or scrolled past. It asks for attention, and in return, it creates the possibility of genuine connection.

This is also where the question of accessibility becomes more than a practical concern—it becomes a meaningful one. If dance has the capacity to reconnect us to ourselves and to one another, then expanding access to it is not only about reaching larger audiences, but about creating more opportunities for these moments of presence to exist.

In this sense, our spring works - Romantics, DanceWorlds, and Ilmaa! - are not only different formats of performance, but different ways of making that connection possible. Whether it is through bringing dance into new cities, inviting audiences to participate, or placing performance in public space, each work creates a moment where something real can be shared.

On this year’s International Day of Dance, we were reminded that dance is not just something we watch or practice - it is something we live. And, by supporting dance, we are ultimately supporting a more connected, compassionate, and human world.