Dance of Romance

"Oh, I wanna dance with somebody...
with somebody who loves me."

"But something happens when we slow dance."

— Keri Hilson, "Slow Dance"

So Alice and Bob, who either don't know each other very well or are Just Friends, are attending some fancy party. For some reason, they wind up dancing to some slow romantic song that requires waltzing or some other dance typified by close body contact. Hey, that's ok, nothing special — except she's starting to blush, and he's getting all nervous. Could it be? Are they in love?

This often pops up during high school dances and fancy parties, the kind with hooped skirts and masks. For some reason, waltzing with a friend, or friend-of-a-friend, always winds up with one or both participants acquiring (or realizing) feelings of love towards the other, as though it were some kind of movement-driven truth/love spell. Often prefaced by an observation that She Cleans Up Nicely, and frequently occurs during a High-School Dance, though it is by no means exclusive to teenagers.

A subtrope of Dances and Balls, obviously.

When adding examples, keep in mind that this trope is about the dance being the first indication of romance between the dancers, not just a romantic dance between two people who are in love (or in denial).

Chances are a Love Theme will be playing.

Compare Mating Dance, Convenient Slow Dance, Flight of Romance. Contrast Death Trap Tango and Sinister Tango Music.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Adolescence of Utena: Utena and Anthy, a clear starlit sky, a rose garden covered in water creating a mirror-like floor, and of course, the song as they reach to each other and dance, "Toki ni, Ai wa (At times, Love is)."
• Berserk: While Casca insist that she can't dance with her crush Griffith in the manga and in Berserk (1997), Berserk: The Golden Age Arc II takes it in a completely different direction with her and Guts dancing together, both parties very clearly enjoying their interaction.
• Candy♡Candy has three moments like those:
  • One of the most Ship Tease-laden moments for Candy and Anthony was their dance in the Andree Big Fancy House. Even more so because they were this close to missing it thanks to Eliza and Neil's machinations. The sight of Candy dancing with Tony in a Pimped-Out Dress that belonged to his Missing Mom sent Eliza into a sobbing fit.
  • Candy dances with Anthony's cousin Archie, but that one goes more into funny territory as she steps on his foot and he makes a really hilarious face. (Later, he's briefly in Unrequited Love with her... before getting together with her best friend Annie.
  • One of the first hints about Stear and Patty's mutual growing feelings was their... rather dorky yet cute dance in the School Festival. Where they both proved to be Blind Without Them, but still tried to go through it. Too bad he perishes in World War I, leaving her all heartbroken.
• In The Case Study of Vanitas, Noé asks Vanitas to dance with him at the ballroom. Then they talk about how neither of them knows what love is. It's all part of the increasing Homoerotic Subtext of these two.
• Descendants of Darkness: For Hisoka and Tsubaki, the start of their interaction consists of her bumping into him and then getting him to dance with her. Cue slow, romantic music, and Gaussian Girl effects as they stare into each other's eyes.
• The Familiar of Zero: After catching Fouguet, the academy holds a ball where Louise asks Saito for a dance. In the novels, at least, Saito declares that that was the time when he fell in love with Louise.
• In the Netherlands arc of Hana no Ko Lunlun, there's a dance contest where Lunlun is supposed to participate to counter the influence of a corrupt klomp (traditional Dutch wooden clogs) maker, but she has no partner. In comes Serge, her handsome Mysterious Protector whom she has a huge crush on; he agrees to dance with her and help her.
• Honoo no Alpen Rose:
  • Jeudi gets dolled up in a red gown to dance a waltz with the Romantic False Lead instead of the guy she has loved from childhood. Said dance turns out to be plot-relevant, as it triggers the return on one of Jeudi's lost memories: dancing with a man who seems to be her father... before the plane crash that left her orphaned and amnesiac.
  • In the OP of the series, she's seen dancing with both the False Lead and the Victorious Childhood Friend.
• The Magic World Ball chapters of Negima! Magister Negi Magi had two sets of these going with variations. The straight one is Kotaro/Natsumi, and the oddball one being Negi/Asuna, because it isn't really Asuna, but her doppelganger Shiori. However, by that point Shiori was already developing feelings for Negi.
• The Rows of Cherry Trees subverts this when Yukiko has an Imagine Spot where she dances with her dear Chikage... but then she sees other girls shooing her away, and her rival Ayako takes her place.
• Subverted in Tokyo Mew Mew, where Ichigo was asked for a dance by Shirogane when the Mew Mews are attending a cruise party. Despite being very embarrassed with herself for enjoying the moment, the two never ended up together, because Ichigo only has eyes for Aoyama.

Comic Books

• In Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me Freddy and the eponymous Laura Dean met when they get paired for square dancing in gym class. Freddy was immediately smitten, and Laura Dean asked her out (in a typically Laura Dean sort of way) after class. Later, when Freddy seeks advice about what to do about Laura Dean, the "Seek-her" tries to continue the dancing metaphor and tells Freddy that she needs to leave "the square."
  Freddy: Fucking square dancing.
• The Ultimates: Henry Pym and Janet Van Dyne were a couple until a domestic discussion ends in violent domestic abuse. She is hospitalized, and he escapes. Captain America tracks him down and beats him to a pulp, but she rejects Cap when he tries to talk. The next time they talk is during a dance in a White House gala. Captain America apologizes, he says he shouldn't have interfered; but she answers that he did interfere and that nobody ever did something like that for her. And then she kisses him... the first kiss Cap got since being unfrozen in the XXI century.

Fan Works

• The Bolt Chronicles: Bolt and Mittens dance together in "The Wedding Reception." However, it does not bear romantic fruit until a later story, "The Ship," where it is lampshaded. In the latter story, Mittens's memory of dancing with Bolt heightens her growing feelings of attraction to the dog considerably.
• Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail: Chloe dances with Lexi — a book who can use his pages to give him a humanoid form; said form is based on a character Chloe created called "The Specter of the Black Forest" (an Expy of Specter) — to the Lobster Quadrille, with both singing its lyrics and waltzing in glee at being together. There are hints of it being romantic even though the two have known each other for at most a few hours.
• In the Junior Officers chapter "Happy Birthday, Lekona", Lekona and Blythe share a dance as the stars come out.
• In RWBY: Scars, Weiss and Blake decide not to go to their school's dance and opt instead to spend time watching movies together. After Weiss reveals that she's never had a nice dance with someone else, Blake offers to dance with her. They have a romantic-laden dance together.
• Subverted in So the Trauma. The story ends with Kim and Ron dancing at the prom. Ron wants to make it one of these, but Kim just isn't interested. The dance ends up being a platonic comfort one after the traumatic events of Kim's girlfriend being revealed to be a robot created by Drakken.
• White Sheep (RWBY): Jaune and Yang share a romantic dance at the High-School Dance after they become an Official Couple. Of course, since Jaune is currently in a Fake Relationship with Weiss, the three of them have a bit of trouble explaining to Winter why her sister's boyfriend is having a clearly romantic dance with some other woman.

Films — Animation

• Anastasia: Anastasia dances with Dimitri as part of her "princess lessons" after he gives her a dress in the Waltz Reprise of "Learn to Do It". Vladimir notices the dance's romantic undertones long before they do ("I never should have let them dance...").
• The Bad Guys (2022) implied between Mr. Wolf and Diane Foxington during Charity Gala.
• Barbie:
  • As in the original ballet Barbie in the Nutcracker, the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Prince here combined with Clara and the Nutcracker get a pas de deux.
  • Barbie of Swan Lake: As in the original Swan Lake, Odette and the Prince get a romantic dance on the night they meet, and then the Prince dances with Odile disguised as Odette at the ball, spelling disaster when he proposes to her instead of the real Odette.
  • Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses: Genevieve and Derek realize that the only way to escape the magical realm is if they waltz together; they are featured in the video examples below.
  • Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus: Annika and Aidan conclude the film figure-skating together in the Cloud Kingdom.
  • Ro and Prince Antonio are dancing in Barbie as the Island Princess when Antonio tells Ro he loves her.
  • Barbie in the Pink Shoes: Barbie adapts Swan Lake again with the pas de deux between Odette and her prince, and then fractures the fairy tale when the real Odette shows up during the Odile scene.
• Charlotte (2021): Alexander and Charlotte share a brief dance at Ottilie's home, which makes their budding romance apparent.
• In Chicken Run, Rocky and Ginger start having romantic feelings after a fast swing dance scene.
• Disney Animated Canon:
  • Nearly the whole of Cinderella's romance occurs as Prince Charming and the titular heroine dance to "So This Is Love".
  • Sleeping Beauty. Though Prince Phillip is drawn to Aurora by the sound of her voice, her first introduction to him is when he sneaks up behind her and starts waltzing with her to "Once Upon a Dream".
  • Beauty and the Beast is one of the most famous examples as they dance to "Beauty and The Beast".
  • Tiana and Naveen in The Princess and the Frog; "If I can mince, you can dance." (Unique in that they are frogs when they dance, rather than humans.)
  • In Tangled, Rapunzel and Flynn try to reach each other during the "Kingdom Dance" but just as they finally come together, the dance ends.
  • In Elemental (2023), Ember and Wade share a slow dance once they realize they can touch without hurting each other.
• This trope is in full effect at the end of Kim Possible Movie: So the Drama when Kim and Ron returned to the prom and danced to the song "Could It Be" which incidentally fit the mood perfectly, culminating in their First Kiss.
• This happens in The Princess and the Pea when Daria and Rollo dance to the movie's Award-Bait Song.
• Rio. After dancing a samba duet, Blu and Jewel are on the verge of kissing... until the bad guys turn up.
• The Scarecrow: another example where the love interests dance to an Award-Bait Song.
• The Swan Princess at the end of the song "This Is My Idea".
• Don Bluth's Thumbelina has one between Thumbelina and Prince Cornelius on their first nighttime flight.

Films — Live-Action

• How Ted and Elaine first met in Airplane!, in a scene that parodies Saturday Night Fever.
• There's a cute one in the 1987 film adaptation of Anne of Avonlea between Anne and Gilbert. It deeply affects Anne, who jerks away quickly after a few moments and makes an excuse to leave. Up until that point, she'd been oblivious to both Gilbert's feelings for her and her own feelings for him. She still remains oblivious to her feelings for him for a few more years.
• The American President: President Shepherd shares a slow dance with Sydney to liven up a state dinner he's hosting, thereby making their relationship known to the world; by the next morning, every newspaper and tabloid in the country is reporting on it and wondering who the woman who managed to snag the president's heart is.
  Sydney: Two hundred pairs of eyes are focused on you with two questions on their minds: who's this girl, and why is the President dancing with her?
  Shepherd: Well, first of all, the two hundred pairs of eyes aren't focused on me. They're focused on you. And the answers are Sydney Ellen Wade, and because she said yes.
• In The Artist, when George and Peppy film the dancing scene for "A German Affair", they keep screwing up the takes because they can't stop staring at each other or making each other laugh. It culminates in a Held Gaze, after which a visibly unsettled George walks off the set. In the film's screenplay, this is actually pointed to as the precise moment where the two fall in love.
• The very last scene of Avengers: Endgame is Captain America finally dancing with his beloved Peggy Carter, something he promised in Captain America: The First Avenger but could never deliver as his last mission left him frozen in the Arctic for decades.
• Subverted in the 2014 French-German Beauty and the Beast. Belle's dance with the Beast is a clear homage to the Dance Of Romance in the Disney adaptation listed above, but given that Belle asks the Beast to dance only because she wants to make a deal with him to see her family again and that the dance ends with the Beast refusing to honor his end of the deal and Belle shouting at him that he disgusts her in response, it ultimately doesn't turn out very romantic.
• In Carefree, Amanda first realizes her attraction to Tony after she dreams about dancing with him; she confirms it by getting him to dance with her in real life.
• Cassanova Was A Woman: Cassanova realizes she's attracted to Lola (and later bisexual because of this) while dancing with her in a lesbian club. After this they fall for each other and date.
• Emma. (2020): At a party, Emma and her good friend Mr. Knightly decide to dance together as friends. By the end of the rather romantic dance, both of them are slowly realizing that they’re more than Just Friends…
• This is the way Robert and Giselle both realize that they were meant to be with each other in Enchanted. It's also the only possible way they could justify Edward and Nancy, even though both of them were glaring at their respective partners the whole time.
• Almasy and Katherine's dance in The English Patient film. It's romantic in that the mutual attraction between the two becomes apparent, but it is also extremely uncomfortable because of the sheer intensity of their connection coupled with the fact that Katherine is another man's wife. And he's sitting not far away.
• "Night and Day" in The Gay Divorcee: Mimi has been very standoffish to Guy until this point, but after they dance together, she is clearly attracted to him—so much so that she's hurt when she thinks he was just romancing her for his job.
• In The Greatest Showman, the newlywed P.T. and Charity Barnum share one during the song "A Million Dreams".
• High School Musical 3: Senior Year gives us "Can I Have This Dance", as Gabriella teaches Troy the waltz.
• In Holiday, Linda and John share a dance just before midnight on New Year's Eve. It's supposed to be an innocent future brother- and sister-in-law moment, but for Linda, at least, it turns into something more.
• In Iron Man, Tony Stark first seems to notice Pepper romantically when he gets her out onto the dance floor for a nice slow waltz. They have an awkward and comedic conversation about it afterwards.
• It looks like this is happening to Janis and Damien towards the end of Mean Girls, but thankfully the pair quickly think better of it.
  • Played straight after Damien runs off. Kevin slips into Janis's still-open arms and starts dancing with her while asking about her ethnicity.
• In Jason's Lyric, the titular characters slow dance after having a mock picnic in an abandoned bus station followed by a twirl hug.
• The sexual tension between King Mongkut and Anna in The King and I comes to a high boil during the 'Shall We Dance' number. Anna is clearly having trouble breathing when the King puts his hand on her waist.
• In La La Land, sparks first start to fly between Mia and Sebastian when they do a soft shoe together a la Fred and Ginger by a scenic overlook in "A Lovely Night". Later in the film, they do a full-blown once literally dancing on air while on a date at the Griffith Observatory.
• Love in the Villa: Julie and Charlie dance together at the winery reception which results in an Almost Kiss.
• Happens in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day:
  Joe: I am making you uncomfortable?
  Miss Pettigrew: This is the most comfortable I've been all day.
• Played straight at the beginning of Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) when John and Jane dance in Colombia, and then subverted later on in the ballroom when they use the dancing to cover the fact they are removing each other's weapons.
• My Animal: Heather dances pretty suggestively with Jonny, fondling her waist and unzipping then zipping up her jacket. Afterward they finally kiss as it becomes clear that Jonny shares her feelings.
• James Bond and Domino dancing a tango in Never Say Never Again. Does not quite cross over into Mating Dance territory, but one can see why Largo interrupts it at the first possible moment.
• Our Miss Brooks: In The Movie Grand Finale, Connie's fantasy includes her dancing with Phillip in their future home.
• At the end of Elizabeth's first dance with Mr. Darcy in the Keira Knightley version of Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Darcy says that he hopes to afford Elizabeth more clarity of his character in the future. This must have been significant to Elizabeth because at that point everyone in the room disappears and Mr Darcy is the only one she notices.
• In Remember the Night, Lee and John share a lovely barn-dance waltz which ends in a steamy kiss.
• In A Royal Affair, Struensee and Caroline have one at a royal ball, complete with gazing into each other's eyes in slow motion. It's strongly implied this is truly when they realize they are in love, as they have their first kiss and then sleep together soon after.
• In The Shape of Water, Elisa daydreams that she and The Amphibian Man are doing one.
• Some Like It Hot has Jerry/Daphne go from hating Osgood, to wanting to marry him, after enjoying a night-long tango with him.
• Sort of in Stardust when Tristan and Yvaine dance on the ship and Yvain starts to glow as she begins realizing her feelings for him.
• While Scott and Fran dance together several times during the course of Strictly Ballroom, their feelings for each other truly start to emerge when they dance to Doris Day's "Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps".
• In Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street Sweeney Todd and Mrs Lovett get one during the song "A Little Priest".
• Sylvie's Love: As a sign of their love, Robert and Sylvie slow-dance thrice: the first is a truncated one after she first sees him perform, the next in the street following a party, and the third at a restaurant after they can finally be together.
• "Cheek To Cheek" from Top Hat.
• In When Harry Met Sally... at the first New Year's party.
• Wonder Woman: Steve and Diana "sway" during the celebration of Veld's liberation and the romantic tension is high. It also leads to a kiss later that night... and possibly more.
• Erin's Guide to Kissing Girls: After standing up for Erin in front of Sydni, and admitting her feelings for her in the hallway, Liz and Erin share a slow dance in front of the bulletin board seen at the start of the film.

Literature

• Deconstructed in A Brother's Price: Kij dances with Jerin, compliments him, and starts a conversation about his being schooled in "the paths of pleasure". He's only embarrassed, and happy when his sisters come to his rescue.
• In Beastly, a modern retelling of "Beauty and the Beast", Adrian teaches Lindy how to dance after he sees that She Cleans Up Nicely. It could also be the point where Lindy started falling for Adrian too, considering that she begins Letting Her Hair Down and wearing perfume around him after the dance.
• In Isabel Cooper's No Proper Lady, the sexual tension between Simon and Joan is unsurprisingly kick-started when Simon begins teaching Joan how to waltz.
• The Empirium Trilogy: Rielle and Audric dance together for a couple hours during their wedding reception. They're both enamored with one another, Rielle in particular being able to ignore all of her worries for once.
• Forbidden: Beginning as a fun, homework-procrastination salsa dance, a Convenient Slow Dance occurs, and Maya and Lochan experience this trope.
• Presidential: Connie and Emily reveal their relationship ahead of the press release which Connie's staff puts out by dancing together publicly while at a dinner, kissing at the end.
• The moment in Billabong's Daughter when others begin to notice the burgeoning feelings between Wally and Norah (A Little Bush Maid).

Live-Action TV

• In The Astronaut Wives Club, Max and Louise share a tentative but close dance in a barn the night the Cuban Missile Crisis reaches high tension.
• In Battlestar Galactica, this happens in the episode "Colonial Day," for Lee and Kara (subverted in that there are already indications of mutual romantic feelings between them and Kara sleeps with someone else that night while fantasizing about Lee) and Roslin and Adama.
• Black Mirror, "Beyond the Sea": David's happy marriage is established when he pulls his wife into a romantic dance that turns hot and heavy. He tries the same tactic with Lana.
• In the first episode of Bomb Girls Kate asks Betty to slow dance with her, very obviously setting up the beginning of their romance.
• Bridgerton:
  • In season 1, Daphne and Simon often dance together. Despite they initially intended to do it with their own agenda (Simon: to keep the ladies from pursuing him, Daphne: to be more desirable for suitors), but they are obviously attracted to one another.
  • In season 2, Anthony and Kate dance together and despite showing an intense upfront, nevertheless they are obviously attracted to one another.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: In "I Only Have Eyes For You", Buffy looks into the music room and sees the ghosts of James and Grace dancing to "I Only Have Eyes For You". She's caught up in the moment herself until James does a Face-Revealing Turn as a corpse.
• In the 1957 and 1965 broadcasts of Cinderella (Rodgers and Hammerstein), Cinderella and the Prince fall in love while waltzing to the song "Ten Minutes Ago".
• In the Korean Drama The City Hall, Mi Rae and Ju Gook dance the tango at the Miss Baendaengi contest, finally letting the sparks fly.
• The Confessions of Frannie Langton: Frannie and Marguerite's dancing together spontaneously is the first sign they have a mutual attraction, which soon builds up into a secret affair.
• Cowboy Bebop (2021). The ill-fated romance between Fearless and Julia begins with them dancing the Jupiter Jig at a nightclub because Vicious (Julia's boyfriend at the time) would rather be drinking and sulking over a deal gone bad. It's a line dance rather than the more intimate version, until one of the dancers accidentally knocks Julia into Fearless' arms and they decide to cut it short. She ends up in bed with him that night.
• CSI: NY:
  • A variation in the opening of "Down the Rabbit Hole". A janitor does a tango with a mannequin in honor of his and his late wife's wedding anniversary.
  • At the end of the Valentine's Day episode, "Blood Actually," Mac meets Christine in a club where Josh Groban is performing, gives her a hand-written card, and she asks how he always knows what to say. He replies, "That's easy, Christine, because I love you." As the first notes of "Happy in My Heartache" begin, he takes her by the hand, leads her to the dance floor, and as they sway slowly to the song, she rests her head on his shoulder. They get engaged in the next episode.
• Dates: Erica and Kate dance seductively with each other in a club, then start kissing. Next we see they've slept together.
• Carter and Abby in ER. In the seventh season episode "Thy Will Be Done," Carter and Abby share one when Abby accompanies Carter to his grandparents' charity ball. The two were established friends by that point, but if the dance wasn't the turning point for both of them, it noticeably was for Carter...
• Karma and Amy's dance at Farrah's wedding reception in the season one finale of Faking It. While not the slow, romantic dance usually seen, the wild, carefree manner in which they dance to 'their song', as though they're the only ones in the room, makes it clear to everyone present that they have feelings for each other.
• Possibly in Frasier in the episode where Niles dances with Daphne. Subverted in that he's already in love with her and she thinks they're just putting on a show to make the other guests stop pitying Niles but he does refer back to it as a significant moment for them in later episodes.
• Friends: Monica and Chandler have an off-screen one when Chandler realized Monica was the woman he "wanted to dance all his dances with". The sixth season finale's end credits scene is them slowdancing together to Eric Clapton's "Wonderful Tonight" as they celebrate their engagement.
• A common occurrence on Glee, which makes sense since it's a musical show. All the major (and most minor) couples have had "falling in love" duets and the duets are usually accompanied by some dancing.
• Discussed in Good Omens (2019) — when trying to work out a plan to make Maggie and Nina fall in love, Aziraphale cites the dances in Jane Austen's books as romantic turning points.
  Aziraphale: Cotillion balls. People would gather and do some formal dancing and then realize they had misunderstood each other and were actually deeply in love.
• Gotham Knights (2023): Stephanie and Harper dancing sexily together at the club (just for cover at the time, it appears), came shortly before the former kissed the latter, after she realized her attraction to girls.
• Subverted in an episode from How I Met Your Mother when Robin, having just used her "truth voice" to Lily about wanting to get back with Barney, gets pulled into a dance with him to "show these people in Cleveland how it's done." When the ending has them so close they're almost kissing, they are interrupted by a phone call from Barney's ex, Nora, who he had tried calling. She feeds him lines to say that are really how she is feeling which, unfortunately, brings Barney and Nora back together.
• iCarly: Carly and Freddie in iSpeed Date.
• Done twice in Nip And Tuck, first with Tuck and Thelma Possum at the harvest dance, then with Nip and Zelda Porcupine at the B-Movie cruise.
• Pablo and Marizza do this in Rebelde Way. It's one of the first indicators in the series that shows that they might start having romantic feelings for one another.
• Schmigadoon!: "Suddenly", a love number where Emma dances with Josh and Doc Lopez dances with Melissa.
• Played with in a complicated way in Sherlock. At John's wedding, Sherlock makes friends with a very flirty bridesmaid who fancies him and, when he rejects her, starts abusing his Sherlock Scan abilities to make him act as her wingman. Eventually, he confesses to her that he secretly loves dancing, but no one must ever know. She asks to see him dance, so he performs a few graceful moves for her (rather than with her), which she adores. In the next episode, John finds out, to his horror, that despite Sherlock's asexuality the bridesmaid is now his girlfriend, walking around his house with no underwear and even sneaking up on him when he's in the bath. Eventually we find out that Sherlock in fact deliberately manipulated the whole situation in order to bait her as a Honey Trap, needing her to solve a case - and that he couldn't even bring himself to do anything more than kiss her. It seems the decision to have him dance for her rather than with her was Foreshadowing this eventual twist.
• Star Trek:
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Odo and Kira in the episode "His Way". Granted, Odo had already been in love with Kira for years by this point, but their dance seemed to be the turning point that allowed Kira to realize her own feelings.
  • Star Trek: Voyager: The Doctor and Seven in the episode "Someone to Watch Over Me". Unlike other examples of this trope it never goes anywhere as Seven has no interest in him.
  • Star Trek: Picard: Not a literal dance in "Absolute Candor", but Soji and Narek sliding about on an icy floor in each other's arms is definitely played like this. On the soundtrack, the title of the music for this scene is "Soji and Narek Waltz".
• Torchwood has the slow dance in 1942 between Jack and the real Captain Jack Harkness after a full episode of romantic tension, culminating in one of the longest gay kisses ever shown on TV. Also a Tear Jerker since Jack is forced to return to his own time immediately after the kiss, and the last image he sees is the other Jack saluting him
• The Vampire Diaries:
  • In the episode "Miss Mystic Falls", 150+-year-old vampire Damon Salvatore steps in to dance with his brother's human girlfriend, Elena Gilbert when Stefan fails to show up. You can see in his eyes that this is the moment he realizes he loves her, and she appears somewhat affected as well.
  • Stefan's dance with Elena's doppelganger, Katherine Pierce, is this as well, both in the past and in the present.
• War and Peace (2016): Andrei and Natasha participate in a dance at a ball, which confirms their attraction and is in fact intercut with scenes of their future courtship.

Music

• Keri Hilson's song "Slow Dance", which is quoted at the top of this page, is about this.
• The song "I Saw Her Standing There" by The Beatles combines this trope with the related tropes High-School Dance, Holding Hands, and Love at First Sight.
• Toby Keith's "You Shouldn't Kiss Me Like This" combines this, Everyone Can See It and First Kiss. "Everybody swears we make the perfect pair, but dancing is as far as it goes. Girl, you've never moved me quite the way you moved me tonight." Clearly, the girl is giving a massive neon sign of a hint to her previously (possibly) Oblivious to Love partner, and everybody there thinks it's about time.
• Frank Sinatra's "Strangers in the Night" combines this with Love at First Sight.
  How was I to know
  Love was just a glance away
  A warm, embracing dance away?
• One of the happier memories in "All Too Well" is "dancing in the kitchen to the refrigerator light".

Theater

• Much like its animated predecessor, in Anastasia, Dmitry and Anya share a dance during the "Learn To Do It" montage and clearly feel a spark of something. Several scenes later, upon seeing their angst, Vlad lampshades this with the song "I Never Should Have Let Them Dance."
• Robert and Francesca in The Bridges of Madison County share a slow dance in her kitchen before finally giving in to their simmering passion.
• In the 2013 Broadway adaptation of Cinderella (Rodgers and Hammerstein), Cinderella and Prince Topher fall in Love at First Sight when they meet at the ball, sharing an elegant waltz shortly after.
• In Crazy for You, a modified production of the 1930 Gershwin hit Girl Crazy, Bobby and Polly share one during the number "Shall We Dance?"
• Disney Theatrical Productions:
  • In the stage version of Beauty and the Beast, the titular couple do their iconic dance to the title song just like in the film, the only difference being they do not dance the entire song.
  • In the stage version of The Little Mermaid, the voiceless human Ariel learns dance as a nonverbal method of communication during Eric's "One Step Closer" number.
  • In the stage version of Frozen (2018), Anna and Hans have an extended dance sequence during "Love Is an Open Door".
• KÀ: An aerial version occurs when Twin Sister falls into the forest and meets the Firefly Boy. The two then have a midair dance on aerial straps as they fall in love.
• The King and I offers one of musical theatre's most iconic examples of this trope in the number "Shall We Dance?" as Anna teaches the King to dance the polka. The "romance" aspect is only subtext, but this moment is the closest they come to ever resolving their Unresolved Sexual Tension, especially when the King insists on dancing in the authentic "European" style, with his hand on Anna's waist.
• Though she is initially reluctant, Prince Digby coxes Princess Althea into sharing a unique version of this in The Light Princess. The fact that Althea is constantly floating in the air complicates matters somewhat, but the dance is accomplished by Digby holding either her hands, her ankles, or the long, trailing ribbons tied to her wrists and waist to keep her from floating away.
• Miss Saigon is another atypical variation; Kim and Chris dance together, which seems to be the usual practice in the club before going off with a client, but there's only a hint of affection; they don't fall deeply in love until afterwards, and the scene that looks like a typical Dance of Romance is the reprise of the song they danced to when they first met.
• Romeo and Juliet first meet at the Capulet's party, so some adaptations have them dance before they first speak to one another.
• Sort of happens in The Sound of Music: Maria and Captain Von Trapp, when the kids ask to be shown the Laendler. Whilst the audience (and the Baroness) can see this coming long before that, it's the first time either of the eventual couple give any inkling of noticing they love each other.
• Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street has an interesting variation. Mrs. Lovett is interested in Sweeney for the entire first half, but he's totally oblivious. Then come "A Little Priest", he notices her in a different light and they waltz. The catch? This sudden romantic interest is due to her...unsual idea of how to dispose of the body of the man he just killed.
• West Side Story during the dance at the gym. Tony and Maria see each other for the first time and dance. It's a cha-cha, not a waltz, but it fits.

Video Games

• In EarthBound Beginnings, Ninten and Ana dance together when they're alone in a healing house, after which Ana asks Ninten if he loves her. Due to technical limitations, the "dance" itself involves the two of them moving around the room using their walking sprites.
• Farpoint have the astronauts, Dr. Grant Moon and Dr. Eva Tyson, dancing in the USS Pilgrim's wrecked hull after finally admitting their feelings for each other and realizing the planet they're stranded upon turns out to be 3 billion lightyears away from earth and they will never see their respective families ever again. It's the best they can manage, being the only two humans stranded on a deserted, uninhabited planet.
• Final Fantasy VIII. The scene where Rinoa persuades Squall to dance with her is where you first know that they're the Official Couple. (Well, y'know, besides the image on the cover.)
• Final Fantasy VI, the Falling-in-Love Montage between Maduin and Madonna depicts them dancing and floating all over the screen.
• In Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, Prince Berkut and Lady Rinea have dancing as a shared theme. Their Cipher card◊ and their shared introductory cutscene featuring them happily waltzing together, and a Memory Prism shows that they met for the first time during a ball: Rinea was looking for a quieter spot, Berkut noticed and talked to her kindly (even telling her to value her own worth), they hit it off, and decide to dance together in the gardens.
• In The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel I, Rean has the option to dance with the ladies at the climax of the game if he has a high bonding affinity with them. For the guys, however, they skip out on the dancing and go straight to watching the other people dance while they just sit down in the distance.
  • In Cold Steel III, there's another dance near the end of the penultimate chapter that involves all the old and new main characters, and the one between Deuteragonists Juna and Kurt certainly gives off these vibes, in contrast to that of their classmates Ash and Musse, which has some more hilarious expressions.
• In the Citadel DLC in Mass Effect 3, Shepard and a supporting protagonist whom he/she is romancing can have a dance of romance.
• Sid Meier's Pirates!: The Romance Sidequest to woo a Governor's daughter involves several formal balls where the player character needs to dance adequately to advance the quest line.
• Elaine does this with Guybrush in Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 4: The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood, although it is parodied as a "Freaky Waltz of Attempted Rape".
• The Walking Dead: Season Four: In episode three, if Clementine romanced Violet and didn't let Delta take her, the two can slowdance in Clementine's room.

Visual Novels

• The first Galaxy Angel has an animated cutscene for each route showing Tact and his chosen Angel dancing at the Fargo ball. The only exception is Forte, who doesn't get the chance to do so (due to her and Tact being busy foiling an assassination attempt on Prince Shiva), although she does get a proper dance scene in Moonlit Lovers.
• In School Days, the player can potentially get Makoto to dance with either of his two main love interests, Kotonoha or Sekai, in front of a bonfire. But if Makoto doesn't stop Kotonoha's bullies before dancing with Sekai, Kotonoha sees them dancing... right after being raped by Taisuke.

Webcomics

• In Crimson Knights Judoch shares a romantic waltz with Erikr while they participate in the Silea's celebration at the palace of queen Olda.
• Girl Genius: The ball at Albia's court as a few:
  • After years of strips required to get the Baron and Lucrezia out of their heads so they could even have such a moment, Gil and Agatha finally share a quiet dance together, much to Tarvek's consternation.
  • When Agatha realizes Higgs isn't going to dance because he's hoping to avoid breaking his cover she goes far out of her way to ensure Zeetha and Higgs get some time together on the dance floor that doesn't make things suspicious. Albia shortly makes it clear she is already aware there's something up with Higgs since he does not have the mental tie to her like her actual subjects.

Web Original

• An important romantic scene in Hands Held in the Snow features Emi and Beatrice dancing together at a very fancy party.

Western Animation

• Avatar: The Last Airbender: While Aang's feelings for Katara had been somewhere on the spectrum between Precocious Crush and Unrequited Love for quite a while, their dance scene in "The Headband" was the first time it looked like his attraction might be reciprocated. (A certain trip through a cave notwithstanding.)
• Happens to Kick and Kendall in the episode "Dancing With the Enemy" on Kick Buttowski when they both share their first mutual hint of being attracted to one another (Kendall being the only one that sort of have hinted at it for a second or two previously)... however, the moment is broken thanks to an off-screen classmate who is apparently an on board shipper for this couple.
  Kick: You're so elegant...
  Kendall: And you're so awesome...
  Off-Screen Kid: KISS HER!
  * needle scratch*
• Scarecrow and The Queen Of Night have one of these in Magic Adventures of Mumfie episode "Scarecrowella".
• Luz Noceda and Amity Blight's dance to defeat Grom in The Owl House episode "Enchanting Grom Fright" has extreme romantic overtones, especially since it's confirmed to the audience less than a minute after the dance is over that Amity is in love with Luz.
• A brief and one-sided example in Star vs. the Forces of Evil episode "Blood Moon Ball". During a magical moon-influenced dance, Star Butterfly is clearly smitten with her dance partner until he reveals himself to be Marco Diaz, who just thought he was rescuing her from the party.
• The Steven Universe episode "The Answer" gives Ruby and Sapphire a romantic dance (which doubles as a Fusion Dance) during the song "Something Entirely New." The choreography and setting are a blatant shoutout to Aurora and Philip's "Once Upon a Dream" dance in Sleeping Beauty.
  • Earlier in the season, during the Whole Episode Flashback "We Need to Talk", Rose and Greg have one on the beach when Greg wants to show Rose that he is committed to their relationship and have her take him more seriously. As Garnet said, "it worked".
• Sym-Bionic Titan: After Ilana misses the dance she worked so hard on (to set up the theme, as it reminded her of her home planet). Lance decides to cheer her up by putting on a hat and sharing a dance with her. Jason and Maribel's dance from earlier (after said couple abandoned them earlier) could be seen as this, although not the dance between Kimmy and her ex-boyfriend Brandon.

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