The Top Dance Highlights of 2015

It’s New Year’s Eve, and you know what that means: Time for a big ol’ year in review roundup!

Look, sure, I could fake grouchiness about being tasked with assembling Dance Spirit‘s Best of 2015 list. But instead I’ll be honest and admit that I love, love, LOVE this kind of thing. It was nothing but awesome to spend a few hours sifting through all of 2015’s dance highlights. (Left Shark! Never forget.) That said, I definitely left out all kinds of stuff. And I know y’all have opinions. So after perusing the list, please leave your own additions in the comments.

OK. Here goes. Ahem.

• Misty Copeland
  won everything. She became American Ballet Theatre’s first African-American female principal. She had several major Swan Lake moments, including her first NYC outing as Odette/Odile. She made her Broadway debut. She earned a TIME Magazine cover. She released a documentary about her extraordinary life. And that’s just the short list, people.
• Tap dance also had a huge 2015. Tappers were crowned the winners of both “So You Think You Can Dance” and Dance Spirit‘s own Cover Model Search, and we can now officially call world-class hoofer/choreographer Michelle Dorrance a genius.
• “Flesh and Bone” featured beautiful, real-life dancers doing terrible, hopefully-nobody’s-real-life things
  .
• 
  Center Stage 3 was announced, to the joy and excitement of LITERALLY EVERYBODY IN THE WORLD.
• Wade Robson returned to the scene
  , dance gods be praised.
• Justin Bieber and Parris Goebel exploded the internet with the “Sorry” video—and then re-exploded it with the rest of the “Purpose” dance movie.
• Allison and tWitch announced that #BabyBoss (aka the winner of “SYTYCD” Season 44) was on the way, squee!
• Gillian Murphy and Ethan Stiefel got married
  , awwwww. (#murfels forever).
• #HitTheQuan
  and #WhipNaeNae happened. Now let us never speak of them again.
• As predicted
  , Hamilton basically took over Broadway, forever.
• “America’s Best Dance Crew” returned
  , and it was even more glorious than we’d hoped.
• “Fraternal Twins” Larsen Thompson and Taylor Hatala proved that they run the world.
• Beyoncé was #AlwaysOnBeat
  . Drizzy was…less so.
• Sia completed her Maddie Ziegler trilogy in epic fashion.
• We said goodbye to Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet. Cry, cry, cry.
• Ciara showed us some, uh, questionable pointework. Cry, cry, cry.
• We found out that baby Ryan Gosling was an EXCELLENT dancer.
• Sergei Polunin took us to church
  , and to that we said: Amen.
• LEFT SHAAAARRRRRKKK
  ! Left shark left shark left shark.
• Last but certainly not least—16 amazing dancers graced the cover of DS:

Happy (almost) 2016, friends!

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