It is rare for a music video not to involve dance, and the twenty-first century is seeing more and more recognisable dancers feature in the videos. Whilst music stars would perform in front of professional dancers regardless, today dance is featuring largely in the videos, the most well-known recent example being Sergei Polunin, the notorious ballet dancer, taking centre stage in Hozier’s Take Me To Church.
The balletic display by Polunin in the video is a delight for dance fans, likely used to escape the convention of backing dancers. For Hozier, Polunin created an alternative music video for Take Me to Church that was later sanctioned by the singer. It has been said he used Hozier’s hit song ‘to explore the agony of the discipline involved in his career’, having previously abandoned two prestigious ballet companies in a bid for personal freedom for his incredible – yet rebellious – talent.
Similarly, Tree of Codes, choreographed by the iconic contemporary choreographer Wayne McGregor, was testament to the ambition of pop star Jamie xx. This plainly shows that pop stars and musicians are turning to dance, and particularly ballet and contemporary, for alternative visuals. McGregor has since worked with Mark Ronson, Alison Mosshart, Boy George and other pop artists, to great critical success. One of McGregor’s dancers has even danced for Paloma Faith at the Brit Awards and with Thom Yorke of Radiohead in a video.
Another high profile example of particularly contemporary dance in a music video is Sia’s Chandelier, featuring young dancer Maddie Ziegler. The Australian singer went on to make two more videos with Ziegler in the same style, ‘almost like three acts of a ballet’. Despite this, it is clear that the dance world is still a long way away from pop music, even though the genres of dance are now crossing each other more easily.