In the ‘Dancer’ music video, Cunning uses the boxing ring as a metaphor for the fight we’re in today. With so many LGBTQ and human rights under siege, Cunning empowers us to look beyond the opponent we’re assigned, and to come together against the systems that oppress us all.
Kat reveals, “I was heralded through the making of ‘Dancer’ by two angels: Martha Graham and Muhammad Ali. Their words and imagery live synonymously in this reminder of who I am at my core. In my lowest moment, I wrote it to reconnect with the animal I know best; the beast who wakes and speaks and innately moves instead of lying down when under attack. I call that animal a ‘Dancer.'”
On the making of the video, Kat shares that it was a team of four collaborating on everything from pre-production to editing. “We all trained for months leading up to the 2-day shoot in Vegas where we ran on hard boiled eggs and beef sticks after teaching ourselves fight choreography in a garage on an iphone. Baylie and McCall Olsen (beside me in the video) are also the choreographer, director, editor, sfx makeup artist, stylist etc. Taylor Pendleton (DP) and Camila Arana (movement direction) round out the team. All of us are (or were) professional dancers.’
They confess “I didn’t intentionally seek that out, but to make something this personally visceral, I needed to do it with people who understood from the guts. There’s no amount of money in the world that could replace the shared language, vision and trust of this team. From the writing of the song to the sparring-and-freezing-in-a-
Cunning may be your new favorite power-pop star on the rise, but the true multihyphenate identifies as a Dancer first. Raised on ballet biopics and bleeding through pointe shoes by the age of twelve, Kat posits that a pair of pointe shoes is no different from a pair of boxing gloves, or whatever tool you put your heart and fist behind. Whether you call it dancing or fighting, if you think you’re down for the count, Cunning insists, “Get up. Swing. Dance. Dance until you die.”