I Claim Kate Bush for Dance!
Here’s the Stranger Thing — Kate Bush has the heart of a contemporary dancer.
The anthem for summer 2022 appears to be Running Up That Hill (1985), by Kate Bush, featured in a key sequence in episode four, season four of Stranger Things. Besides introducing her artistry to another generation of listeners, new fans will also be watching her music video featuring a contemporary dance duet performed by Bush and dancer Michael Hervieu. Cast aside by MTV as “too esoteric,” this video gem shows Bush at the height of her dancing prowess and deserves a closer analysis. Kate Bush presents her vision as a dance and she sought out the training to be able to perform it herself, and that makes her a dancer in my book. Take a look:
Running Up That Hill - Kate Bush
Bush used her sizeable advance from EMI records to take class with noted UK dancer and teacher Lindsay Kemp, who introduced her to both mime and contemporary dance principles. He had been a student of famed mime Marcel Marceau and directed his own dance company in the 1960s, later staging shows for David Bowie during his Ziggy Stardust days and choreographing work for high-profile dance companies such as Ballet Rambert. Influential dance teachers who helped Bush shape her movement style at this point in her career were modern dancer Robin Kovak and choreographer Dianne Grey, who created the dance piece for the video.
Description
Filmed mostly in blue tones, Bush and Hervieu, dressed in fitted blue leotards and wide-legged blue Japanese hakamas, reach toward the same spot while wrapping around each other, often with Bush inverted upside down and carefully cradled. After allowing her to spill on the ground, Hervieu gathers her close as she frantically pulls away from him toward the windows.
She eventually breaks away from him and with legs firmly planted on the ground, and twists her upper body, arms aloft, trailing her torso like flags, a percussive motion he mirrors before dumping her over his shoulder. Now on the floor, she dives between his legs to emerge on the other side of his voluminous pants. Caught for a few breaths on his outstretched arms, she readies for another dive, but he emerges instead. Bush instead dives over his shoulder to again be cradled and spilled onto the floor. As she relaxes back, he again cradles her and they roll back and forth repeatedly until she breaks free and stumbles over him while running away.
Now outside of the windowed room, they run and take turns tackling each other along a straight ribbon of road, and it is at this point that everything changes. The room, now dark and more starkly lit, envelops the two dancers, who perform a slower version of the percussive twisting phrase in unison, with elbows leading and bodies lagging behind. Their arms pull back as if readying an arrow on the string of a bow and she is lifted with outstretched arms, culminating in a dizzying spin.
As he draws away to a corner, the room floods with a blue-clad crowd intent on pushing past Bush to walk down a narrow hallway encased in glass windows. The crowd alternately wears masks resembling Bush and Hervieu as Bush tries in vain to escape the mob, but she is swallowed up. Flashbacks feature variations of the outstretched arm lift, the spin, and a poignant moment when they both spread their arms back as wings. Eerily, the hallway turns red as more shadowed figures emerge from the other end and approach menacingly. The changing color reveals a landscape on the other side of the glass reminiscent of that pivotal scene in Stranger Things. The last image of the video is Bush and Hervieu repeatedly pulling an imaginary arrow back from an outstretched arm, reaching directly to the viewer.
Analysis
Much of the movement focuses on opposing forces such as contract and expand, gather and scatter, and the use of breath to initiate movement, punctuated by tender gestures repeated around her face. Bush competently demonstrates expressive sequential movement of the arms, spine, and legs, when folding and unfolding around her partner and she shows a facility for comfortably connecting with the floor while performing sliding, falling, and spilling actions. And finally, she maintains a strong core throughout and utilizes spiraling motions, developed by Martha Graham, to help propel her through space with economy and Bush maintains a solid hip-to-hip connection with her partner during the wrapping lifts.
Interpretation
The movement choices, particularly the oppositional forces of contract and expand, reinforce themes within the lyrics of the song, which expresses an ongoing struggle and an exchange, or swapping of places, made evident in the use of differing levels for the two dancers, or in the framing of a shot to show an alternate point of view. The choreography exhibits varying degrees of connection with singular gestures and full-bodied contact, and uses alternations of timing to indicate either violence or tenderness. The male continually returns to cradle or hold the female in a tight grip, perhaps indicating mutual dependence or control, so that when the female breaks free and eventually tackles him, she is flipping the script and exerting a measure of control over her partner. They appear to lose each other in the crowd, but find their connection again at the end, swapping places as they aim their imaginary arrows.
Evaluation
For a choreographer, it is relatively easy to stage a dance around a lead actor or singer who can dance a little, and still make the audience feel like the lead is dancing. It’s much harder to impart contemporary modern dance concepts to a performer who is unfamiliar with that style of dance — it can’t be faked or fudged easily. In 1985, Kate Bush demonstrated her dancing chops by performing in a duet with a professional dancer, intent on presenting dance as an expressive force in music videos. Her training is evident and her support of dance as an expressive art in the popular music realm is admirable. Kudos as well to her choreographer for choosing both a meaningful and accomplishable movement vocabulary to express Bush’s vision. Imagine if MTV had released the video as planned in 1985, and what that small act might have done for the discipline of modern and contemporary dance and how it might have changed its relationship to popular music.
For Further Study
Bush continued working with dance before she took a long break from the limelight starting in 2005. She wrote, directed, and starred in the 1993 short film/video album The Line, The Cross, and the Curve, accompanying her album release The Red Shoes. Although not as focused on contemporary dance concepts, the ambitious project, which featured Kemp and actor Miranda Richardson, connected the singles through dance and is still enjoyed by film afficionados.
The Line, The Cross, and the Curve - Kate Bush
Some more recent takes on using contemporary dance in popular music and TV include singer Pink in her 2012 video Try and Mac’s Dance Scene from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. What are your thoughts about these dances?
It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia | Season 13 Ep. 10: Mac’s Dance Scene | FXX
