Dance has always been about the stage, the lights, and the applause. At least, that’s what we grew up believing while watching Center Stage or Step Up. But there’s a massive, quiet shift happening in warehouses, tiny studio corners, and even suburban garages that has nothing to do with a Broadway curtain call. People are calling it the lab world of dance. It's messy. It’s gritty. It’s honestly a bit confusing if you’re used to seeing perfectly synchronized backup dancers behind a pop star.
Essentially, "labbing" is the R&D department of human movement.
Think of it like a scientist with a petri dish, but instead of bacteria, you've got a dancer trying to figure out how many ways a shoulder can rotate while keeping a foot planted. It’s not a rehearsal. It’s not a class. If you walk into a lab session, you might see someone standing still for five minutes just feeling the weight of their own head. It looks weird. It feels weird. But this is exactly where the next decade of choreography is being born.
What Exactly Is the Lab World of Dance Anyway?
Most people think dancing is just learning steps. You go to a studio, the teacher counts "5, 6, 7, 8," and you copy them. The lab world of dance flips that upside down. In a lab, there is no teacher. There is only a prompt or a "concept."
It’s research.
Imagine a dancer like Gisèle Vienne or someone from the Pina Bausch lineage. They aren't looking for "cool" moves. They’re looking for honest moves. In the street dance community—especially in Krump, Litefeet, and Popping—the lab is sacred. It’s where you go to "find your character." When dancers talk about "labbing a concept," they might mean they are spending three hours exploring how to move as if their bones are made of liquid mercury. Or how to dance using only their peripheral vision.
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It’s an obsession with the "how" rather than the "what."
The Science of the Struggle
Why do people do this? It's not like you get paid to lab. There’s no trophy. Honestly, a lot of the time, labbing feels like failing. You try a movement, it looks clunky, you try again, you fall over, and you do it for another four hours. But neurologically, this is where the magic happens.
Research into neuroplasticity suggests that when we break away from repetitive patterns—like the standard "jazz hands" or basic "toprock"—we are literally re-wiring our brains. According to movement researchers like Dr. Peter Lovatt (often known as Dr. Dance), the way we move is intrinsically linked to how we think. By entering the lab world of dance, performers are breaking their own cognitive biases. They are teaching their bodies to respond to stimuli rather than just executing a pre-planned script.
It’s exhausting. Your brain gets tired before your legs do.
Dancers like FKA Twigs have famously brought this lab mentality into the mainstream. She doesn't just hire dancers; she hires "movers" who have spent years in the lab world. You can see the result in the twitchy, hyper-specific isolation of her music videos. It doesn't look like a music video; it looks like a biological event. That’s the lab influence. It strips away the "performance" and leaves something raw and slightly uncomfortable.
Breaking Down the "Session" Culture
If you want to understand the lab world of dance, you have to understand the "session." This isn't a party, though there’s usually music. A session is a gathering where the primary goal is exchange.
- Someone catches a vibe.
- Another person responds with a different texture.
- There's a lot of nodding and "oohing" when someone finds a new "pocket" in the music.
- Sometimes there's total silence.
In the Krump scene, labbing is almost spiritual. Tight Eyez and the Majo70 crew didn't just invent moves; they labbed emotions. They took pain, frustration, and joy and tried to figure out what those things looked like if they were physicalized through a chest pop or a "buck" swing.
It’s a different kind of virtuosity.
In a traditional ballet setting, virtuosity is how many pirouettes you can do. In the lab world, virtuosity is how much nuance you can cram into a single finger movement. It’s the difference between a high-definition photograph and a sprawling, abstract oil painting. One is about clarity; the other is about depth.
The Tools of the Lab: Not Just Mirrors and Music
You’d think you just need a floor and a speaker. Wrong.
The lab world of dance uses some pretty specific "tech," even if that tech is just psychological. For example, "isolation labbing" involves taping off parts of the body. A dancer might literally tie their left arm to their belt to see how their torso compensates. It’s a self-imposed limitation.
Then there’s "thread labbing." This is a concept where the dancer imagines a literal thread weaving through their limbs. They have to move without "breaking" the thread. It sounds like a hippy-dippy drama class exercise, but when you see a high-level street dancer like Slim Boogie or Glitch do it, it looks like CGI.
Actually, that’s a huge point: The lab world is where the "glitch" aesthetic came from.
Dancers started mimicking the digital errors they saw on broken VHS tapes or buffering YouTube videos. They spent hundreds of hours in the lab figuring out how to make their muscles move in "frames per second." You can’t learn that in a 60-minute "Intro to Hip Hop" class at the local YMCA. You have to live in the lab for that.
Misconceptions: It’s Not Just "Freestyling"
People use these terms interchangeably. They shouldn't.
Freestyling is the act of dancing without a routine. Labbing is the work you do so that your freestyle doesn't suck.
If you just go out and "freestyle" every day, you’ll eventually hit a wall. You’ll find yourself doing the same three moves over and over. Your body has a "default setting." The lab world of dance is about deleting the default. It’s about intentionality.
I once watched a world-class house dancer lab a single footwork step for three hours. Just one step. He wasn't practicing the step; he was labbing the entry and exit of the step. He was looking for 50 different ways to get into that one move. That is the level of obsession we’re talking about here.
It’s tedious. It’s boring to watch for about 90% of the time. But that 10% where they find something new? That’s why this subculture exists.
The Business of the Lab
Surprisingly, the lab world is starting to bleed into the corporate and tech sectors. Companies are looking at how dancers lab to understand "embodied cognition." This is the idea that the brain isn't the only thing that "thinks"—the body has its own intelligence.
In the 2020s, we’ve seen choreographers like Wayne McGregor work with AI and Google Arts & Culture to create "Living Archives." They used algorithms to suggest movements that a human might not naturally think of, and then the dancers went into the lab to see if those movements were physically possible.
It’s a feedback loop.
Man labs.
Machine suggests.
Man labs again.
This isn't just art; it’s a study of human potential. When a dancer labs, they are essentially testing the limits of the human musculoskeletal system. They are finding "bugs" in the human software and turning them into features.
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Why You Should Care (Even If You Don't Dance)
You might be thinking, "Cool, so people wiggle around in garages. Why does this matter to me?"
It matters because the lab world of dance is the vanguard of how we express ourselves in a digital age. As we spend more time behind screens, our physical vocabulary is shrinking. We sit. We type. We scroll. That’s about it.
The lab world is a rebellion against that physical stagnation. It’s a reminder that the human body is the most complex piece of technology we own.
When you see a dancer in a movie or a commercial doing something that makes your jaw drop, they didn't just "get lucky" with their genes. They spent years in the lab. They’ve deconstructed their own movements to the point where they can control individual muscle groups.
It’s a form of mindfulness, honestly. You can’t lab if you aren't 100% present. You have to feel every vibration, every point of tension, and every release. In a world that’s constantly trying to distract us, the lab is one of the few places where you are forced to pay attention to your own existence.
The Future of the Lab: VR and Beyond
We are already seeing the lab world move into virtual reality. Dancers are using VR headsets to lab in 3D spaces where gravity doesn't work the same way. Imagine labbing a concept where your floor is actually a ceiling, or where your limbs are ten feet long.
Dancers like Mecnun Giasar (who has worked with Rosalía) are constantly pushing these boundaries. They take the "weirdness" of the lab and translate it into stadium tours. The "alien-like" movements that are currently trending on TikTok? Those were labbed three years ago in a basement in Berlin or a studio in Tokyo.
The mainstream always catches up to the lab eventually. But by the time the mainstream gets it, the lab world has already moved on to something else.
How to Start Your Own "Lab" Practice
You don't need to be a pro to benefit from the lab mentality. It’s actually a pretty incredible way to get out of your own head and into your body. Here is how you actually do it without feeling like a total weirdo (though feeling like a weirdo is part of the process).
Pick a Limitation, Not a Goal
Don't try to "dance well." Instead, tell yourself: "I can only move my joints in straight lines for the next ten minutes." Or, "I have to keep my eyes closed and stay on one foot." Limitations breed creativity. When you take away your "go-to" moves, your body is forced to find a new way to survive the music.
Record Everything, Watch Nothing (At First)
Set up your phone and record your lab session. But don't watch it immediately. Spend 20 minutes just exploring. The camera acts as an objective observer. When you watch it back a day later, you’ll see moments of "truth" that you didn't even realize were happening. You’ll also see a lot of garbage, but that’s the point of a lab.
Change the Texture
Stop thinking about "moves" and start thinking about "textures." Is your movement "sandpaper"? Is it "velvet"? Is it "shattering glass"? If you lab the concept of "shattering," your body will naturally find angles and rhythms that you would never find if you were just trying to "look cool."
The 10-Minute Rule
The first five minutes of labbing are usually just you doing things you already know. It’s the "warm-up" for your brain. The real labbing starts at the 10-minute mark when you run out of ideas. That’s the "zone of frustration." Don't stop there. That’s where the new stuff lives. Stay in the frustration.
The lab world of dance isn't about being the best dancer in the room. It’s about being the most curious. It’s a lifelong commitment to asking "What if?" with your body. Whether you’re a professional looking to break a plateau or just someone who wants to move a bit better, the lab is open. No experience required, but an open mind is mandatory.
Forget the counts. Forget the mirror. Just find a concept and stay there until it turns into something new.