BABY STEPS LEAD THE WAY

Everyone loves dancing babies.

- Margaret Fuhrer

Their uninhibited enthusiasm makes them an evergreen draw on social media, the most popular people on a wedding dance floor, the stars of the family-friendly daytime dance parties that have proliferated over the past few years.

But some artists are taking that love a step further, making young children a part of the choreographic process or creating music designed to get them moving.

They are considering why these tiny dancers bring people such joy and what lessons they might have for grownups.

Like Arizona State University assistant professor Amanda Pintore. In 2025, she and Olivia Herneddo, an artist and researcher, hosted a toddler dance party that doubled as a choreographic brainstorm.

A handful of young children and their caregivers entered a dance studio in Mesa, Arizona, as a musician played soothing chime-like tones on a synthesizer.

Prof Pintore and Herneddo sat invitingly on the floor, swaying gently. A small boy in a yellow shirt started skipping around them. The musician accelerated the beeps and boops of the synthesizer, following the boy's lead. Herneddo got up and began to skip, too. Before long, a girl was jumping along.

This "play lab" helped shape Prof Pintore's recent show, Red. Performed in November for multigenerational crowds at the Mesa Arts Center and Children’s Museum of Phoenix, Red was created both for and, in part, by children from one to three years old.

The final show incorporated movements and ideas gathered during multiple play lab sessions, leaving room for young audience members to add their own touches.

Prof Pintore, who studies dance education for newborns to six-year-olds, sees extraordinary richness in young children's curiosity-driven, anything-goes approach to dancing.