Tempo - Music Video

Trigger warning: depression and self-harm

I was one half of the creative duo that made the concept and treatment for this music video. A collaboration with world-renowned director Rankin, world-class ballet dancer, Sergei Polunin, and edgy rock band Husky Loops, that visually expresses Sergei Polunin’s mental health journey through the medium of dance.

Our film is set in a world of constraint, signifying Polunin’s experiences of feeling trapped and pressured to become a traditional ballet dancer from a young age, which he attributed to his self-harm. As the film develops, he moves into a more aggressive and expressive signature style to convey his newfound sense of freedom as he breaks out of the conventional norms of ballet. Although this energises him, the darkness of episodic depression is never far away from Polunin’s light. Dancing between these two states, he shines a light on what can often feel like a neverending mental battle.

Shot by Rankin, for HungerTV.
Launched on Nowness.
Film and editing credits: Musa Alderson Clarke