Wow, artistic double whammy here this morning. Howard Stern had a singer, Sia, on his show who performed an acoustic rendition of her new hit song, Chandelier. I loved the song, I loved her voice and I wanted to know more. So I went to YouTube to see the inevitable video — and was doubly blown away. The video features a young eleven year-old dancer, Maddie Ziegler, who plays a childhood version of Sia dancing alone to the song in a nondescript living space. I have never seen dancing like this: wild, fresh, kooky, childish, intelligent, introspective, and technically breathtaking. This 11 year old expresses more of the human condition in four minutes than many novels I’ve read and movies I’ve seen.
I’m not the only one to notice — as of this morning the video has 32 million hits.
Blown away. How can an eleven year old consciously “know” and manipulate all this?
What constitutes “integral art?” Artistic talent that reaches the ‘next level ‘ and leaves us breathless? Art that serves as a portal to transcendent or deep, depths of reality?
This question struck me as I watched the video. Stunning dancer!
I think your definition is right on, Jeremy. A great inquiry at any rate …
Sorry. As the mother of a daughter who was involved in the ballet/modern/jazz dancing world as a young girl, I see nothing special here.
My girlfriiend, an accomplished singer/performer is hooked on this song and video. I love it when popular art reaches such great levels because it reaches unimaginable numbers of people. The letterman performance was awesome too 🙂
Something about seeing very young kids moving/being in such a MANNERED way kinda creeps me out. She’s a talented and skilled dancer. Maybe I’m just responding to shadow in me, but that video brings out the feeling I had about Michael Jackson – too bad this child didn’t get to just be a child and play free and spontaneous. Something about entering the adult world of image and self-consciousness too soon. The delight of childhood is that utter lack of self-consciousness and utter lack of the drive to create a self-image for the world – at least for a brief while. .
Ohhh Lisa, How I wish there were more kids who experience that pre self-conscious world after about 3 or 4 years old anyway. It seems to be long gone by the time they reach conscious awareness now days even without the artistic training. Some kids seem to come out of the womb with certain mature developmental lines. It’s hard to know what is going on without actually knowing the individual child. It’s a fine line between sharing a talent and exploitation. I love your sensitivity and appreciate your perspective.
What is “special” here is the number of people who can see it, feel it and share it.
I think parents should be a little concerned about the flesh-colored outfit. I would much rather see her in all black and it would have photographed much better too, especially in a white room. Or even all white. Do this one over.