Why do humanoids dance?

If you have been even remotely following humanoid news, chances are you have seen at least one humanoid dance demonstration. Maybe it was this one, or this one, or this one, or more recently this one. At this point it seems like dancing is a rite of passage for humanoids to be taken seriously.

This leads to the question - why do robot companies make their humanoids dance? It’s simply because dance routines are one of the best stress tests for a humanoid’s whole system. At the same time, dancing is also one of the most effective marketing tools.

If you want to learn more, keep reading…

Dancing synchronizes balance, motion planning, perception, and actuation at once.
Unlike simple walking, a choreographed routine forces the robot to shift weight dynamically and recover balance mid-motion, coordinate upper and lower limbs in non-repetitive patterns, and handle complex trajectories and timing under changing center-of-mass positions.

Dance routines happen on a flat, predictable floor with known lighting and timing — ideal for demonstrations without risking damage. It’s a sweet spot between lab safety and dynamic performance. In short: if a robot can dance smoothly, it’s a strong sign that its control stack is well-integrated. 

Dance movements are a proxy for agility and real-time adaptability — the same traits needed for future use cases like industrial manipulation, search & rescue, or logistics. It’s safer to show off those dynamics in a dance than in a warehouse while being entertaining.

Humanoids are designed to operate in human-centered environments, and dance is a universal human behavior. A dancing robot triggers emotional and social reactions that demonstrate “human-like” fluidity, build public familiarity and comfort and attract viral attention. Boston Dynamics’ viral “Do You Love Me?” video in 2020 is a textbook example — it shifted public perception from “scary robot dog” to “technical marvel”.

A dance video tells a visual story that’s instantly understandable, even to non-engineers. That’s powerful for media that need a clear visual hook and investors who want to see progress in embodied AI, which is crucial for funding.

Humanoid robots dance because it’s the perfect blend of:

It’s less about art, and more about proving that the robot’s hardware, software, and coordination can handle real-world complexity — while making people smile. 

It is, however, important to note that not all dance routines are created equal. The real story lies in how humanoid robot companies have used dance or choreographed motion demonstrations, and how their strategies differ. The contrast is actually quite revealing.

Boston Dynamics released a widely-viewed video at end of 2020. It featured their robots Atlas, Spot and Handle performing a choreographed dance to “Do You Love Me?” by The Contours.

Later they participated (via Spot robots) in a performance on America’s Got Talent, dancing to “Don’t Stop Me Now.”

They also collaborated with BTS and Hyundai Motor Group (which acquired Boston Dynamics) in a branded video where Spot & Atlas danced with BTS.

As part of showcasing agility, coordination, balance, and full-body motion control — for example, in the CBS Boston article, founder Marc Raibert noted the dance routine forced upgrades in robot power and motion tools. 

It has strong marketing value: viral appeal, demonstrating “look how far we are in robot motion” to a broad audience, not just robotics researchers. It acts as a proof point of their motion stack rather than a practical task. The demos are highly polished, choreographed, and clearly built for spectacle. They emphasise motion performance more than utility.

In 2025, Unitree showcased 16 of its H1 humanoid robots performing a synchronized dance (folk dance “Yangge” style) during China’s annual Spring Festival Gala. They spun handkerchiefs and danced in sync with human partners.

They also released a video of their G1 humanoid robot dancing around a soccer ball and enduring a “stick attack” while maintaining balance.

The large-scale performance (many robots on stage) underscores mass-synchronisation, stage-presence, show production value, and by extension suggests their robots are stable and capable of choreographed routines in real-world stage settings. By embedding the demo in a major televised event (Spring Festival Gala) the company also signals national technological prowess and robotics leadership.

The “stick attack” video emphasises robustness under perturbation — i.e., “robot can dance and still hold balance when hit” — putting more emphasis on resilience than just performing a routine.

Unitree’s mass-robot dance emphasises the idea of many robots working together, not just one performing a trick. That appeals in platforms where spectacle and scale matter.

In May 2025, Tesla posted a clip of Optimus performing a range of dance-/movement routines: footwork, pirouettes, coordination, hopping from one leg, full-body control. Tesla claimed “no CGI” and “real-time speed” for the demo. Their engineers said the motion was trained entirely in simulation (domain-randomisation, reinforcement learning) then zero-shot transferred to the real robot. 

My take on their strategy:

The demo shows “embodied intelligence” and the robot’s ability to move fluidly in human-style fashion, maintain balance, coordinate limbs, adapt mid-motion. The emphasis on “trained in simulation, zero-shot to real” suggests Tesla is betting on large-scale learning systems and simulation pipelines. That signals a strategy of trying to scale humanoid robotics via software/data leverage rather than only hardware innovation. This strategy aligns with how they build their autonomous vehicles. 

Tesla is likely signalling that Optimus will go from novelty to product. However, given Tesla's past trend of overpromise and under-delivery, the dance demo seems more like a way to buy trust/time.

So yes, humanoids dance because it’s the hardest easy thing. It’s technical validation, marketing theatre, and strategic signalling rolled into one routine.

For all the flash, dancing demos serve a deeper engineering philosophy: if you can dance, you can do anything. The precision, balance, and coordination required to move rhythmically to music translate directly to industrial, household, and assistive tasks.

Tesla explicitly states that its improvements in dancing “will directly transfer to more practical situations like robust walking, agile full-body control.” Boston Dynamics and Agility make similar claims: dance today, deliver boxes tomorrow.