Cousin Tony’s Brand New Firebird – Gabriel’s Horn
In collaboration with Matthew Shaw for Double Drummer Music, 2023.
When we first heard “Gabriel’s Horn”, we were uplifted by the feel-good beat. It feels like the kind of song you want to get up and dance to, and be surrounded by people in mutual celebration. We wanted to capture this feeling by gathering a compilation of as many people as possible, dancing in as many different locations as we could find. We initially considered contracting dancers we knew, but as a documentary photographer/filmmaker duo, we are more interested in incorporating the general public into our work. So when it came to making this video, we decided to only involve street-cast dancers. We took to the streets with a camera and speaker, approaching strangers and asking them if they wanted to dance to the song, right then and there. All the footage in the video has been recorded spontaneously, having met each person only moments before. We were happily surprised by how receptive people were, and how talented they were at dancing. What emerged was a joyous constellation of brilliant performers, and a video that was deliriously fun to make.