The Idol Dance Going Viral on TikTok? Thank Bob Fosse and Paula Abdul – IndieWire – Armessa Movie News

“The Idol” may not be getting much critical love, but one place it’s thriving? TikTok. While pop star Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp) drives herself to a mental and physical breaking point while shooting a music video for her new single “World Class Sinner / I’m a Freak,” creators have embraced Nina McNeely’s choreography. Yet when it comes to McNeely’s influences, the word “trending” doesn’t really apply — it’s more like “classic,” as the choreographer looked to dances that have stood the test of time for 25 years or more for inspiration.

“I wanted to dig into the classic tropes of what makes a pop star an icon,” McNeely told IndieWire. “I thought of stars like Madonna and others who used eroticism to push the boundaries and make big statements.” McNeely began researching the great erotic dance moments in film and music videos and started with one of the greatest American musicals of all time. “The first one that jumped out to me was Bob Fosse’s ‘All That Jazz’ — the ‘Take Off With Us’ scene that starts like a happy musical, then when the lights go down it gets steamy and foggy. The clothes start coming off and you’ve got men with men, women with women, and they do this really beautiful, sensual number.”

From Fosse, McNeely moved on to David Fincher’s video for Paula Abdul’s “Cold Hearted,” which was choreographed by Abdul and Michael Darrin and drew inspiration from the same “All That Jazz” number, and the Britney Spears video “I’m a Slave 4 U,” directed by Francis Lawrence and choreographed by Brian Friedman and Wade Robson. Another key cinematic reference was Paul Verhoeven’s 1995 spectacle “Showgirls” and its choreography by Marguerite Derricks. For McNeely, all of these works shared a common strength: “They all have wonderful scenes where the dancers are so close to the star that it’s almost an orgy-like feeling. It’s a visual that creates a real feeling of desire toward the pop star, so I really focused on creating those kinds of images.”

McNeely’s work more than holds its own against those influences, as evidenced by how quickly the choreography went viral on TikTok. “To my surprise, texts with links to TikTok videos started flooding in from friends and family a couple of days after the first episode aired,” she said. “It’s been an absolute delight seeing so many people perform my choreography with such attitude and precision. They’re all killing it, and it brings me so much joy!”

McNeely also wanted to explore what it felt like for Jocelyn to get overwhelmed during the video, which is what led to the dance’s many instances in which she’s pushed and pulled by everyone around her — a clear visual metaphor for the character’s struggle throughout the series. “They yank her around, they invade her space, they lift her in the air and her body’s in all these awkward positions,” McNeely said. “She’s getting thrown all over the place.”

Director Sam Levinson called on McNeely not only to choreograph but to contribute story points based on her extensive experience in music videos. “He asked me to send him a list of all the things that have ever gone wrong for me in a music video.” One of those things — that pop stars often rehearse in different shoes than they perform in, which leads to problems on the day of the shoot — yielded the memorable image of Jocelyn’s shredded feet after she’s given it her all during the dance.

Helping to create that image was indicative of McNeely’s experience on “The Idol,” which she described as highly collaborative. “I was asked for my input a lot and given a lot of creative control over the choreography,” she said. McNeely is best known to movie fans for her avant-garde work on films like Gaspar Noe’s “Climax” and Mark Pellington’s “The Severing,” and what’s interesting about her work on “The Idol” is the way it applies her voice to dance sequences that are intended to reflect something more mainstream and accessible. It was an interesting balance for McNeely, too: “It was a really nice challenge for me, because straight pop is a little outside my wheelhouse. But it’s kind of what the show is about — bringing darkness and an experimental quality to something that’s a straight pop star dance.”