Hip hop Vogue, Fortnite, flash mobs, a Sufi or chair dance: YouTube is full of videos of people dancing. With a team of 52 researchers from all over the world, artist Anouk Kruithof researched dance videos on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Together they found 1,000 dance styles in 196 countries, brought together in Universal Tongue. This 4-hour video installation is arranged over eight screens and contains no less than 32 hours of found footage, arranged by rhythm and number of dancers. The installation is on display until 8 May 2022,

Artist Anouk Kruithof is fascinated by dance as a form of self-expression and empowerment. And for Universal Tongue she researched how dance has developed throughout history as part of our global media culture, and how dance manifests itself on social media platforms. Together with a team of 52 researchers from around the world, Anouk collected more than 8,800 dance videos that could be found on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Each researcher entered the same search terms, and because of their different geographic locations, they ended up with different search results – varying from the abakúa from Cuba and the Argentine tango to the Zimbabwean sungura and the zwiefacher from Germany.

Anouk Kruithof: ‘When you look past all the cultural differences, you see that really everyone gets so much energy from dancing with their bodies. That is something that connects people and I think that is beautiful.’