About

Evolution of Dance is viral video of a man dancing to clips from 32 different songs from a variety of genres and time periods. The video starts with Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog" from 1956 and finishes with "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" by Jay-Z from 2004.

Origin

The video was taken during the finale of a Judson Laipply show called "Inspirational Comedy". Judson Laipply^[1], an American motivational speaker, originally began closing many of his college, high school and corporate appearances with his unusual dance medley. He uploaded the dance to YouTube on April 6th, 2006.

Spread

During its initial rise in popularity, it amassed over 10 million views in under two weeks and was featured on CNN, MSN, E!, USA Today, Good Morning America, The Today Show, and AOL. Judson tells the story behind the creation of the Evolution of Dance in a video interview available on StayTunedTV.

It became their #1 Most Viewed Video (All Time), #1 Most Favorited (All Time) Video, and #6 Most Discussed (All Time) Video on YouTube, with 1.797.159 views on July 16, 2009. Evolution of Dance slipped to number 2 but subsequently reclaimed its old #1 spot as the most viewed video on YouTube on April 30, 2009. As of July 26th, 2011, it is the 23rd most viewed video of all time with 177,395,539 views.

Search

Search queries for "evolution of dance" peaked in June of 2006, 2 months after the video was uploaded to YouTube.

Evolution of Dance 2

Laipply created a sequel video called "Evolution of Dance 2" featuring songs ranging from James Brown to Soulja Boy. Since its release on January 9, 2009, the video has garnered over 16 million views as of July 26th, 2011.

Evolution of the Touchdown Dance

On July 19th, 2011, Judson Laipply teamed up with ESPN and viral advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy to make a video of the evolution of touchdown dances. It remained relatively unknown until he plugged it on his own YouTube channel.^[2] The ad was created in honor of the returning football season, and was written by Geoff Proud, art directed by Alon Zouaretz and directed by Andrew Robertson.^[3]

Remixes

External References

^[1] Justin's Website – The Evolution of Dance

^[2] Youtube – Judson's Channel

^[3] Campaign Live – ESPN 'evolution of touchdown dance' by Wieden & Kennedy New York