You're right you can't really define his dancing as really good or bad, perhaps just as totally 80s. I watch the video a few times. I like how it was cut. Dancing isn't the main focus of the video. For the most part it comes secondary to Curt's singing. There is only a few scenes and you don't see Roland dance till 1:48 into the video. His style is similar to how other singers danced in the 80s. It's possible it's taken from how people danced in clubs back then, but done in his own personal style. It seems more like free form dancing imo.

Another thing to note, they worked up to his big dance scene. First he's standing on the dock, then he is walking on the dock. Then he could be seen dancing but he is in the background, then they pan over and zoom in and his dancing is the main focus but seen through throw the window. Now for the big dance scene he is outside dancing. Instead of fading out, or switching abruptly to the next scene they superimpose him dancing over the window where Curt is singing. So whoever done the video put some thought into it. Even if Curt Smith said the video was made on the cheap.

(I need to put more than 1 character before the quote)

Love this, people were happy to just throw themselves into it during the 60s..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNLXxDMxe18

Hilarious, jump to 3:10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6Eaz-1_3iA

and they can't un-see it either. :D



particularly about 1:07 into it.

Stretching the topic a little, but afaik this is the closest that MB comes to a thread dedicated to dance - which seems pretty odd for a music forum.

This vid is less about dance moves, but has that preparation - expectation - costume - scenary stuff that often goes with a dance performance irl. Oh, yes, and music too:-



Always feels good when you have no idea what you are looking at, so not to spoil that pleasure, the answer 's in the spoiler:-

@0:55, 1:50, and 2:25


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jadvt7CbH1o

Slam dancing at it's finest.

The main video I want to highlight in this post is Ingenue by Atoms For Peace. I included two primer videos to understand the complexity of Thom Yorke's choreographic imagination. The first half of the video 00:00 to 04:04 is very much like modern dance (I guess) or whatever it is called. There is a similar, but not very identical type of dancing found in Unknown Tongues. Which is why I included it as a primer for Ingenue. In both videos where do this thing where they switch back and forth. The dancer switches from black to white outfits in Unknown Tongues. Ingenue the "switch" is between Thom Yorke and a female dancer. However Ingenue takes it a step further and they split and dance with each other. They dance as if they were dancing out a story. Then all of a sudden from 04:05 Thom and his dancing partner goes off a choreographic tangent and they do something that's very unusual, something perhaps unscripted. I don't know the name of dance they preform but it is very similar to the "Blueberry" dance. Well enjoy the videos and I hope you learned something new about Thom Yorke.

Jlin - Unknown Tongues


The Karen "We're Not Wrecking It" / "The Blueberry" Dance


Atoms For Peace - Ingenue

Do non-official choreographies count?





If not, I'll submit The Fall's 'Eat Y'rself Fitter' video for the worst dancing category - courtesy of MES, starting at about 3:57.



And for best dancing, just off the top of my head:





And, for live efforts, a good one from Britney (just the dancing...I think the audio was not live)

Yes, in my book they are more enjoyable to watch than many over-thought ensemble set-piece bits of dancing.

Total thanks to Safar for this clip that he posted recently in the World music section. It's so good I thought it deserved more attention, specially for the dancer, who, unless I missed it, doesn't even get a credit in the video. :(