However, Grammy award-winning artiste Sean Paul was adamant that The Ward Theatre was needed for this video shoot. Saulter noted that there were bureaucratic challenges involved in getting permission to use the theatre, which is under construction. Sign up for The Gleaner’s morning and evening newsletters. Are we going to have these megastructures? Are we going to be more environmentally conscious? Where are we really going to be?” “Jamaica’s Centennial is an opportunity to think about and discuss what Jamaica will look like 100 years after independence. “ Dynamite is a music video but also a work of Afrofuturism, which is a cultural aesthetic, philosophy of science and philosophy of history that explores the developing intersection of African diaspora culture with technology,” he added.Īccording to Saulter, the setting is Neo-Kingston, 2062. I thought it was very interesting, and it reminds you of time,” Saulter told The Gleaner. And because we were telling a story that was set in the future, it was good to see the contrast of holograms and these crazy costumes against this very old architecture. You can’t deny how much history you feel when you are in the location. “The reason we wanted to film at Ward Theatre is that it is such an ornate and historical location … the fretwork, the mouldings, just the age of the building. All this comes together in Dynamite, the Storm Saulter-directed music video for the song, a collab with platinum-selling dancehall artiste Sean Paul and Australian pop singer Sia. In 2021, The Ward Theatre is being thrust into the future – the year 2062 to be exact – significantly, 100 years after Jamaica would celebrate independence. It also served as the venue for the launch of political parties – the People’s National Party, on September 18, 1938, and the Jamaica Labour Party, on J– as well as the stage from which National Hero Marcus Mosiah Garvey made some of his well-known speeches. In its heyday, the largest and most historic theatre in the English-speaking Caribbean saw major performances by international acts and groups, namely Paul Robeson, Arthur Rubinstein, Marian Anderson, Ballet Nacional de Cuba, The Dance Theatre of Harlem and the National Dance Theatre Company of Jamaica. Gifted to the city of Kingston in 1912 by Colonel Charles Ward, this landmark occupies a site in downtown Kingston which has been in continuous use as a theatre since the 1770s. Bunny keeps you guessing.The Ward Theatre seeps with history. The thrill of the song is wrapped up in how it skirts any pressure to lay out its intentions, how it moves at its own whims. She may be channeling the want to be immaterial, the ability to evaporate like a wisp of smoke, but when she sings “I’m so nonphysical,” it comes with embodied longing, as if she’s aching for touch. She enters a new dimension in the chorus, switching from narrator to first-person, trading a Drake-like rhythmic delivery for her usual lithe, crystalline singing. Meanwhile, as if recreating the slipperiness of Bunny, Polachek darts through various images (blazing fireworks, a wet palette, a cut check), never resting long enough for you to grasp what’s next.
#DANCES TO GET BUSY SEAN PAUL PC#
It’s a characteristic display of PC Music alum Harle’s impulse to simultaneously send-up and pay homage to popular forms, with results too deliciously crisp to read as a joke. –Puja PatelĬasting off the gossamer avant-pop of 2019’s Pang, Polachek and producer Danny L Harle opt for a sound that is both commercial and weird: a deep, juicy bassline befitting of the Top 40, a “ yoo hoo” whistle, a sample taken from Harle’s giggling baby, even marimba plinks that conjure an island vacation with Kygo. It’s a one-act play of existential malaise and a sardonic anthem for those who can't help but seek out the spotlight. There’s some humor to it all forlorn, she recognizes that the world never stops turning, and that it’s fine to lie to ourselves if it helps pass the time. The song unfolds as a balancing act of vulnerability and expectation, of altruistic self-expression and the vanity of wanting to be seen, or even adored. “Working for the Knife" is her brooding, melancholic first major single back from this respite, and acts as an incisive warning about how much of our identity we give to our life’s greatest undertakings, and who we’re giving it up for. After a long and grueling world tour supporting her breakthrough album Be the Cowboy, the singer took time off in 2019, saying she needed a break from the “constant churn” of performance. Mitski would like to have a word on that. The saying goes that if you do what you love, you’ll never have to work a day in your life.