Taylor Swift in Swan Lake

[California]

We've seen some pretty awful ads with dancers (and fake dancers in a certain infamous movie), but I found this video endearing. I don't consider myself a Taylor Swift fan, but I love that she tries several styles of dancing (including a swan in Swan Lake) and allows herself to look clumsy in all of it. Toward the end, a lot of ordinary people are urged to dance themselves. A nice call to everybody to dance and not worry about what others think. Let me add: she's also sending a clear message that all those dance styles are difficult to perform:

http://balletoman.com/1429-taylor-swift-shake-it-off.html#vid

[ABT Fan]

I was REALLY reluctant to open this link, but it's so charming! Thanks California. I like how she doesn't try to look good dancing (and that the producers don't try to make her look good especially performing ballet, for example).

[volcanohunter]

She's a good sport. And she's right: one should never suppress the urge to dance.

[California]

Dance Magazine just sent out a Tweet about this video, "Taylor Swift Makes Bad Dancing Cool":

http://dancemagazine.com/blogs/dance-glance/6002

[cubanmiamiboy]

Yeah, she's cool and everything, but I got the same bad taste feeling watching her do those "comic" moves with her swan tutu as when I see the type of stuff in the line of the Miss Piggy/Nureyev thing . I guess I do have a black and white/square position as what to expect when someone has a tutu on. I'm probably too serious about the art..don't have too much tolerance about the ever present efforts to try to make everything in this life look "cool" or comic. It is all to me the same, either being the Burnett/Villella stint, or the Nureyev/Miss Piggy or the late night talk show clownish false attempts at steps or positions when interviewing a dancer just to get a few laughs from the audience. "Agggh" in my book..

[trieste]

For me the cringe-worthy thing about the "har har look, I'm making ballet funny!" type of joke Taylor Swift pulls here is the implication that ballet is inherently humorless, and only by breaking out of the art form and introducing contrast can it be funny. I'm sure I don't have to list the rep of comedic ballets, classic and modern - even most of the serious 19th century ballets have funny bits that can be laugh out loud moments for the right actors/dancers.

More importantly, does anyone here recognize the girls/company in the video? I'm seeing familiar faces but having trouble putting names to them.

[PeggyR]

I thought the video was surprisingly fun and, more important, supremely silly. Considering the appalling things people have been doing to themselves and each other lately, personally, I could do with as much good-natured silliness as I can get. Too bad the music is forgettable.

[California]

Like Trieste, I'm curious who the professional dancers are, especially in the ballet and the modern sequences. I've looked at several postings of the video on YouTube and nobody is including credits.

I've looked at the video a few more times and still love the thing. She is silly in all the dance forms, not just ballet. And the professional dancers in all genres get to show us some amazing moves, providing very nice illustrations of what pros can do and amateurs cannot. I have wondered if she (or the producers) were inspired by the Sara Lane/Swan Lake story. I do see two very nice messages: (1) to be a great dancer is something you have to work at - you can't just bounce out there and pretend (a la Portman...), and (2) even if you dance as badly as Taylor, you should still go for it and have fun, as they do at the end.

[California]

The video has triggered a torrent of criticism and praise. If you Google "Taylor Swift shake it up dancers" you can see a lot of it. I still can't find out who the professional dancers are, but it was filmed over three days in New York. Here's what Brian Siebert, at the NY Times, just posted:

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/19/taylor-swifts-shake-it-off-video-a-dance-critics-take/?smid=tw-share

[cubanmiamiboy]

(2) even if you dance as badly as Taylor, you should still go for it ...

Green light to the Skoriks of the world..?

[PeggyR]

Nitpicking here, but is it really fair to call her a 'bad dancer'? To my thinking, a bad dancer (singer, bricklayer, whatever) is someone who has been trained in a discipline, but who does it poorly. Really, she's not a dancer at all, and that's the point I get from this video: you don't have to be a dancer to dance.

[cubanmiamiboy]

that's the point I get from this video: you don't have to be a dancer to dance.

Well, you do, if professionally speaking. Otherwise, you can always have the Skoriks.

[California]

(2) even if you dance as badly as Taylor, you should still go for it ...

Green light to the Skoriks of the world..?

A green light for ordinary people to dance for themselves and not worry that they are not as good as the professionals Swift includes. So if the Skoriks of the world want to dance for themselves (as opposed to the theater), go for it! (Actually, I have never seen Skorik in the theater, so I should withhold judgment on her.) But I don't see Swift endorsing the idea that everybody can fake it as a well-trained professional (are you listening, Natalie?) - just the opposite, actually.

I noticed in some of the newspaper articles on-line this morning about the video that those ordinary people in the final moments were Swift's fans, invited from her Facebook page.

[cubanmiamiboy]

(2) even if you dance as badly as Taylor, you should still go for it ...

Green light to the Skoriks of the world..?

. So if the Skoriks of the world want to dance for themselves (as opposed to the theater), go for it! .

But that's the tricky aspect here. The Skoriks of the world are out there,being payed for their dancing and promoted endlessly...not merely doing it for themselves. On the other side, of course nobody should limit themselves in a dancing medium when wanting to have a good time. Through my long history of club hopping I've seen many of my friends being shy and afraid to go to the dance floor. Nothing that a couple of cocktails can't resolve!. After a few of those and some encouragement...hell yeah, you have all the Taylor Swifts of the world out there!

[California]

I seriously doubt that Swift thinks she's able to discern professional talent in dance and that's not the point of the video. She was probably grateful for her producers, who know something about this. She gave a touching quote to Rolling Stone about the message she was trying to convey to her young fans:

"It takes a long time to figure out who you are and where you fit in in the world. I'm putting myself in all these awkward situations where the dancers are incredible, and I'm having fun with it, but not fitting in. They're doing the most beautiful things, and I'm being embarrassingly bad at it. It shows you to keep doing you, keep being you, keep trying to figure out where you fit in in the world, and eventually you will."

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/taylor-swift-dismisses-the-haters-dances-with-fans-for-new-song-shake-it-off-20140818#ixzz3AxbCfVMN

[sandik]

I think Siebert makes some excellent points, both about the role of dance in this video (it's more about the pop than it is about the art form) and the good natured quality of the artists involved.

As we say at my house, "Look, dancers are working."