For Sia, Dance Is Where the Human and the Weird Intersect

Sia - Cheap Thrills (Performance Edit)

In that video, Ms. Zeigler is Sias doppelgnger. With bare feet, thrashing legs and a wild-child innocence Sia described it as a person on the verge of a nervous breakdown she seems primal, even awkward, but in no way erotic.

Sia - Chandelier (Official Video) Video by SiaVEVO

It was very important to me that she not be sexualized in any way on my watch, Sia said. The first time I came to see what Ryan had choreographed, I remember asking for a few curvy hip movements to be changed to gorilla dancing and belly patting. I remember saying flexed foot over pointed foot, and lets make it weirder and throwing some ideas around about facial pulling and eating some pretend ramen.

That back and forth, she said, was how she and Mr. Heffington discovered their language. I couldnt think of anything Id want less than just another video for little girls and boys to watch that tells them: Look pretty! Be sexy! I want my work to say: Get weird! Express yourself freely!

Photo Maddie Ziegler, one of Sias dancers, and the choreographer Ryan Heffington. Credit Mathieu Plainfoss

Mr. Heffington doesnt believe that dance is underused in pop music more that it is abused much of the time by adhering to an easy formula. We established the artist and backup dancers, I believe, in the early 80s, he said. There has to be evolution, and there is. Were doing it.

He added: Im impressed when I go and see Beyonc in concert Im absolutely floored by the spectacle. Im not emotionally charged or engaged at all.

Mr. Heffington calls his approach to choreography human based. When you do gestures, everyone knows what that feels like, he said. It doesnt become a superhuman exercise onstage, but rather a story that we all know. Even if you havent been through it, you understand the emotion.

Sia discovered Mr. Heffington when she attended a performance of his 2013 production of KTCHN, a dance installation inspired by the works of the visual artist Nolan Hendrickson, in Los Angeles. At that point, Sia said, she logged him in my mental Rolodex for future collaboration. She added: I was so so inspired by that show. I felt a connection to his work that I rarely, if ever, feel watching other dance.

Mr. Heffington, 43, began his dance training at the age of 8 in Yuba City, Calif.; after moving to Los Angeles in 1991, he found the commercial dance world lacking and began to choreograph on his own, creating pieces for clubs and showcases. In the 90s, along with Bubba Carr, he created Psycho Dance Sho, an adventurous cabaret act that touched on violence and comedy while experimenting with gender-bending. As he put it, there were no rules.

His aesthetic, which wouldnt feel out of place in the downtown New York dance scene, is a poetic mix of Yvonne Rainer, the postmodern dance legend who embraced pedestrian movement, and Darcel or Darcel Leonard Wynne the glamorous Solid Gold dancer. (She is one of his favorites.)

Mr. Heffington, who has choreographed for many artists, including Arcade Fire (We Exist) and Florence and the Machine (The Odyssey), is increasingly in demand. Recently, he worked on Kenzos new perfume campaign, which includes a film directed by Spike Jonze. On Saturday, July 30, he is to unveil a dance at the Broad Museum in Los Angeles for its Summer Happenings series.

As for Sia, Mr. Heffington said he grasped her music visually. Its really easy for me to translate, he said. Its almost always instant. I trust; I feel something. Of course, there is a lot of direction from Sia. Its not a long, painstaking rehearsal process. It comes and, sure, I fine-tune, but I dont work on something and go, Oh my G*d its not working. Its like an inner voice. I cant nitpick, and I cant deconstruct. It kills it for me.

So far, Sia has left the dancing in her videos to others. I love to dance, she said. I have always been the first on the dance floor, but Im not teachable. I couldnt learn five, six, seven, eight if my life depended on it. Ryan keeps trying to convince me to do a video myself, and I find that so flattering, but Im too afraid or lazy. (Please give it a whirl.)

But Mr. Heffington is interested in more than technique: Its not about the extreme conditioning that we sometimes think makes the best dancer, he said. Its more about accessing the human story through dance.

And when he listens to Sias voice, he said, its as if the lyrics are stripped away. G*d knows I dont even know the Chandelier lyrics of course, we didnt do a literal interpretation, so I didnt really have to listen to them, but its not where I draw my inspiration from when Im hearing the music, he said. Its emotional, expressive how the voice snakes up and pulls back.

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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/24/arts/dance/for-sia-dance-is-where-the-human-and-the-weird-intersect.html