httpss://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPzYhb3O4Hc
Photo How do you plan a spontaneous-looking dance party? That was one task facing the choreographer Celia Rowlson-Hall on the Brooklyn set of the music video for “In Common,” the nonchalantly danceable new single from Alicia Keys.
Directed by Pierre Debussc in high-definition black and white, the video features about a dozen dancers for whom the term “Backup” doesn’t apply.
As Ms. Keys sings from her perch on a free-standing fire escape, intimate duets, seductive solos and euphoric jam sessions unfold on an abstracted city street below.
For their own bodies and for one another, the dancers seem to feel unconditional love.
In a recent phone interview, she spoke about casting choices, improvisational hugging and choreographing to a song without the song.
For the duets, I worked with specific points of embrace and breaking out of those to find new points of embrace.
I do give, through my choreography, things I know I’d want, like points for cutting in and out of movement, because I know how to cut dance.