Social media influencer Kirill Korshikov tells about how his Social Dance TV project turned into mass media

It was hard to predict that anything would affect world dance community so much as COVID-19 did. Currently social dancing have turned into social distancing, that made the community adapt and grow into online reality more than ever. An entrepreneur and the creator of the popular dance video channel Social Dance TV, Kirill Korshikov tells how an ordinary Instagram account once became a world covering media for the whole wide community of social dancers and how it was made possible to gather tens of thousands viewers on recent anti-corona-aid dance live airs. Now, more than ever, Social Dance TV’s feed on Instagram and Youtube captures sights of most dancers round the globe as the only way to keep connected during anti-COVID restrictions. And these days together with millions of dancers Kirill longs for a fine party just for the whole world to see, and he does his best to ease the longing!

For those who’re aware it’s obvious that social dancing is not the same as it was 20 years ago. And it's not even about new fancy moves and styles. Diverse groups and schools evolved into a world community and cultural industry due to social networks. Now a whole new world of dance festivals up to 10,000 people with its own icons and mass media offers you best shows, parties till dawn, and a constant news feed. Social dance has become more of a life background of mass of people than it has ever been.

Numbers to compare: back in 2000, when “Salsa” cult movie came out, the “salsa festival” format was in its founding. The biggest events gathered up to 1000 people. Now, after twenty years, there are around 15 events held every weekend. It’s hard to imagine a place where salsa and bachata festivals are somehow missed. 5000 people is a median value for bigger events as Warsaw Salsa Festival or Croatian Summer Salsa Festival. And 10,000 people come every year to Euro Dance Festival in Germany.

The mass media of the social dance world has become a matter of Kirill’s concern just before it earned the right to be called so. Back in 2014 social dancing issue representation in social media was rather disjoint: dance schools, festivals and dancers themselves charged their channels with diverse content based on their activity in order to widen their audience. So, in compare to nowadays, it was pretty hard to get some aggregated content wide and deep enough to explore any distinct topic.

Having a pro eye on shooting videos and being a dancer since 4 brought Kirill to the brighter idea to create an Instagram channel with JUST dancing videos in order to unite visuals like himself, who would consume that kind of content for hours. Also it seemed handy to have a link to throw in respond to constant queries like “what’s that social dancing you keep talking about?” Thus, on Jan. 13 2015 the Social Dance TV channel was started.

In the beginning it aired stirring dancing videos from different sources while Kirill started to make his own videos, intending to show the dancers to themselves in the cool way he saw them. In a half a year it came clear that own made videos had way more engagement, so Social Dance TV became an author’s channel.