From social media, dancers are grooving their way to the NYC stage

Shows like 11 to Midnight, & Juliet, and Cats: The Jellicle Ball are engaging, in various ways, with creators and communities cultivated in online spaces.

Summary

• Cast and creative team members from three dance-forward shows share the influence of the online dance scene on the NYC theatre scene
• 11 to Midnight is created by a viral dance duo and incorporates social media into the performance
• & Juliet and other Broadway shows have cast social media dancers in featured dance roles
• Cats: The Jellicle Ball taps into the ballroom scene that has grown more mainstream and interconnected since the advent of social media

A classic philosophy of musical theatre is that if your emotions are too big to speak, you sing them, and if they're too big to sing, you dance them. A similar idea prevails on social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok: Take the trend where creators post videos of themselves dancing with text overlays describing their thoughts and feelings. Sure, the format is a play for attention, but it speaks to the power of movement to help get a message across.

"Dance gives off a different emotion," said Ache Richardson, a cast member of the Off-Broadway dance show 11 to Midnight. "We say something different [...] when you move compared to us just speaking to you."

It's perhaps natural, then, that in recent years, the NYC theatre scene has successfully leveraged the popularity of social media dance to inject new verve into a largely analog medium. Think 11 to Midnight, created by a viral dance duo with millions of followers; Broadway's & Juliet, which marked the Broadway debut of one of the most famous online dancers around today; and Cats: The Jellicle Ball, which showcases pre-internet dance styles that have evolved to connect global communities of performers and appreciators online.

New York Theatre Guide spoke to cast and creative team members of these shows about the phenomenon, which manifests in a different way with each show. But there's one common denominator: the idea that bringing online dancers and their talents out of the confines of your phone screen has the power to get even more audiences moving and grooving to the theatre.

11 to Midnight leans into its online origins

11 to Midnight is the brainchild of spouses Austin and Marideth Telenko — known to their millions of followers as Cost n' Mayor — and spouses Jacob and Lyndsay Magid Aviner, together known as Hideaway Circus. Collectively, the four have years of experience in a wide variety of dance genres — including jazz, ballet, tap, and musical theatre — but here, they're bringing street styles center stage.

Street styles are inspired by the way people dance in public: on the sidewalk, in the club, and yes, on social media. Basic street-style dance is the foundation of most online choreography like the Telenkos', consisting of jazz- and hip-hop-inspired movements even people with little training can learn. Of course, the duo's routines for 11 to Midnight's are more advanced, but they still have a "pedestrian, down-to-earth" feel, per cast member Jake Urban, since the show takes place among friends hanging out at a New Year's Eve apartment party. Austin Telenko opined that any theatregoer can find at least one step they could do, not unlike how their followers learn and replicate their favorite Cost n' Mayor dances online.

"What's cool is that everybody's a dancer," added Marideth Telenko. "Not everybody sings and not everybody acts, but everybody moves in their life. It feels very relatable to watch people dance."

11 to Midnight also nods to its social media roots by livestreaming one number on TikTok at each performance; and performing a separate number lit only by phone flashlights. The goal of the whole production, according to Lyndsay Magid Aviner, is to expand on the best of what social media dance can cultivate: a global audience that can connect with the movement regardless of language, and fast-paced, high-energy, accessible entertainment like that of short-form video. (Indeed, 11 to Midnight is itself short-form by theatre standards, clocking in at just 70 minutes.)

"Austin and Marideth putting their dance style into a traditional musical would just be, I don't think, doing justice to what people love about them on social media," she said. "Really embracing telling a story through their style of dance that they tell in little mini 20-second clips, and exploding that to an hour and 10 minutes, is, I hope, the way to do justice to this story and to them."

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Social media stars return to their roots in & Juliet and more

As 11 to Midnight's Kristalyn Gill pointed out, many online dancers are also professionals who "are wanting to bring what they've been training for behind the scenes to the forefront of their social media platforms," she said.

That's been apparent as multiple stars with large online followings have recently leapt to the stage. 11 to Midnight has showcased multiple, including Glee's Heather Morris, Dance Moms's Nia Sioux, Broadway's JJ Niemann, and online dancer Melissa Becraft, all of whom also have extensive dance backgrounds offline. Perhaps the most high-profile example is The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives's Whitney Leavitt, of the TikTok group "MomTok," who parlayed a Dancing With the Stars run into her Broadway debut in Chicago. But the wave ostensibly began in 2024, when TikToker Charli D'Amelio — whose name has been synonymous with online dance fame since racking up millions of followers in 2020 — made her Broadway debut in the pop music-fueled Shakespeare riff & Juliet.

"Charli has such a big dance background, and she was a competition dancer, so she was phenomenal to teach," said Romy Vuksan, & Juliet's dance captain. "She turned up every day and was so diligent and always came prepared."

The role of a dance captain is to teach new cast members the show's choreography, acting as a "bridge" between them and a show's choreographer. In working with Vuksan, D'Amelio underwent three weeks of 4-hour sessions — the rigor probably not unlike that of her years on the competition circuit, making Broadway a kind of return to form even as it was D'Amelio's debut. There's also the shared live aspect: Since “no two performances [are] the same” in live theatre, Vuksan noted, it’s “special and very different” to curating dance routines online.

Not all of the online stars have D’Amelio’s level of prior training: for example, Vuksan also helped viral vocal coach Cheryl Porter find her feet in the role of Juliet’s nurse, Angelique. But that too is hugely valuable, observed Vuksan, since fans may well feel similarly welcomed into the dance world — and the theatre world — by seeing their social media favorites under a new spotlight.

"Any promotion for dancing and movement, and excitement around that, is great," she said. "I love that movement is medicine and makes people happy. So if they find their version of that, whether that comes from it being online or going to see a show, I will always encourage that."

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Cats: The Jellicle Ball taps into a global community online and on stage

A similar "come one, come all" spirit powers Cats: The Jellicle Ball — indeed, that exact slogan is displayed on its Broadway marquee. The revival transposes Andrew Lloyd Webber's dance musical Cats onto a queer ballroom competition, where the "cats" strut and sashay their way to reincarnation.

Ballroom culture and its associated dance styles, like vogue and duckwalk, emerged from underground NYC communities of color in the mid-20th century and therefore predate the internet age. But in recent decades, digital media — from Madonna's "Vogue" music video to TV shows and films like Pose and Paris Is Burning to social platforms — has cultivated a mainstream, far-reaching community around ballroom that, arguably, laid the groundwork for Jellicle Ball to achieve its explosive levels of success.

"It's the right time," said Arturo Lyons, who, like his co-choreographer Omari Wiles, is a prominent ballroom figure. Balls are still alive and well today, and just as online dance trends and tutorials have emerged in every genre from street styles to ballet, vogue is no exception. Not to mention that ballroom trailblazers in the Cats cast, like multi-award-winner Tempress "Chasity" Moore (Grizabella) and "Wonder Woman of Vogue" Leiomy (Macavity), have gained large followings from their ballroom careers, reaching wider audiences by posting videos of their performances on social media.

Wiles hopes that people with all levels of ballroom exposure, whether online or IRL, appreciate the authentic experience in store for them at Cats: The Jellicle Ball. Simply, he said: "Welcome home."

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