Molly Long’s Competitive Dance Choreography Is Going Viral on TikTok, Again: Meet the Choreographer
If your TikTok feed recently served you a clip of seven dancers moving in uncanny synchronization to a 1979 new wave track, you’ve already seen the work of Molly Long. Her choreography has racked up millions of likes, pulling competitive dance into mainstream conversation in a way the genre rarely breaks through.
Two routines from her competitive dance program Project 21 are driving the attention, and the story behind them — retro music, a self-described “never the best dancer” choreographer and routines built for stage, not phones — explains a lot about what’s catching fire.
The Two Viral Routines
The first video to go viral was in 2025, which featured a dance clip from Season 10 of Project 21 set to “Pop Muzik” by M, featuring seven dancers.
The second routine, set to Frankie Smith’s 1981 track “Double Dutch Bus,” went viral on TikTok in February 2026 and has already accumulated more than 3.6 million likes.
Both songs are retro picks from the late ’70s and early ’80s. The pairing of those throwback tracks with Long’s sharp, detailed choreography seems to be part of what’s resonating. One TikTok user wrote, “Her choreography looks like how the music sounds.” Another posted, “Haven’t been this captivated by art in a while.”
A third commented, “You can literally recognise Molly Long from a MILE away.” That remark gets at something specific: Long’s work has a visual signature distinct enough that people scrolling through TikTok can identify it before seeing a credit.
Who Molly Long is
Long was born on August 21, 1992, and is an American choreographer and dance instructor. She began training at age three at her mother’s studio, California Dance Academy, and later trained at Dance Precisions under her aunt Leslie Kenfield and instructor Shannon Mather.
By 16, she was already teaching dance, working primarily with younger students. Her early routines, including “My Boyfriend’s Back” and “Single Ladies,” gained recognition in competitive dance circuits. “My Boyfriend’s Back” featured dancer Autumn Miller and won national titles at Hall of Fame Nationals and Showbiz Nationals in 2009.
“My mom taught the minis, my aunt Leslie handled the juniors, and, when I turned 16, I also started working at the studio,” Long told Dance Spirit in 2020. “I was never the best dancer when I was younger, but I absolutely loved being there—it felt like home.”
Between ages 18 and 22, she freelanced, teaching workshops and setting choreography across the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand. Her work has appeared on television programs including America’s Got Talent, Raising Asia and Abby’s Ultimate Dance Competition. She has received choreography awards including an Industry Dance Award for her jazz piece “Fever” and Best Jazz Piece at The Dance Awards.
Project 21: The Program Behind the Clips
Long founded Project 21 in 2015 in Orange County, California. The program started with 20 dancers at the McCoy Rigby Conservatory of the Arts and later expanded internationally.
The name has a straightforward origin. “I wish I had a better story about the name,” Long told Dance Spirit. “In truth, it’s a play on the fact that she was born on the twenty-first of August, and 21 is her favorite number. I was away on a teaching tour, the audition announcement was going live on Instagram the next day, and I desperately needed a name. Project 21 was just the least cheesy of the options I thought of!”
Project 21 is now in its eleventh season — the season that produced the “Double Dutch Bus” routine currently circulating on TikTok.
How She Creates Her Choreography
Long has been open about her process. In a 2018 piece for Dance Spirit, she wrote: “Late, late at night is when I feel most creative. Even when I was 16 and was just getting started choreographing, I would always go into my bathroom and listen to the music at one in the morning. Maybe it’s something about the sleep deprivation that hits at that hour, but that’s when the ideas and plans and outlines come.”
The routines gaining traction right now aren’t choreographed for TikTok — but fans are recreating them on the app anyway. From TikTok stars to established dancers and choreographers and random strangers on the internet, everyone’s posting their own version of Long’s choreography online.
Production of this article included the use of AI. It was reviewed and edited by a team of content specialists.
