2. Madonna is one of the greatest popular culture artists in the world and has utilized her dance
training into her music videos for decades. From the 1980s through the 2000s, she has continued to
reinvent herself with her dance and express herself with dance in many ways. Since I have always been a
huge Madonna fan I decided that my independent research project should be about the style of dance she
uses in her music videos. I chose two videos that she dances in the whole time and also made sure they
were decades apart so I could analyze the change in her movement. First, I chose Lucky Star, which was
Madonna’s music video in 1983 and Hung Up, which was her music video in 2005. With both of these
music videos I could analyze her movement qualities through space, effort, time, weight and the
relationships through her body.
With my methods and approach to this project I decided to look at scholarly books written about
Madonna’s career and also had information on her dancing in her music videos. I also looked at books on
popular music in the 1980s and 2000s to see what was occurring during that time that could have
influenced Madonna’s choices in her music videos. What also helped was connecting Madonna’s music
videos one of the articles that we read in class because this allowed me to make a bigger connection with
her movement and what her intents were, and also tried to analyze what she wanted people to think of her.
Madonna was a very interesting artist to analyze because she is a very talented person; I found a deeper
meaning in her movement style.
Through time Madonna has always been changing by combining good promotion, danceable
material, engaging choreography, and visual appeal into just the kind of superstar package that the
industry wanted. Madonna began her career as a disco diva with such dance floor hits as Holiday,
Borderline and Lucky Star and then used music videos to make the transition to rock star in Like a Virgin
and Material Girl. In her videos and live performances, she displayed an adult sexuality that inspired lust
in teenage boys, emulation in young girls, and outrage in their parents. Madonna has used dance to
promote sexual expression and create controversy in her music videos.
3. Since Madonna has used her dancing in music videos to create an immense amount of
controversy I can connect this to the article Movement Analysis Piecing Together the Puzzle because this
article talks about how you can use movement as a source of communication and can explain
relationships and meaning. Through gesture and posture we can show expression in movement and create
a strong relationship and connection between the movement and the meaning. For example, in Madonna’s
Hung Up music video she holds a posture where her one hand is on her hip and the other hand is on the
barre (see image 1 below). She has a very direct focus facing forward and can use this to catch the
viewer’s attention. With this posture she can be trying to say that she is strong, powerful, sexy, and has
the ability to capture your attention with her eyes. In this posture she is very stable and says that she
knows what she is doing and how to make you feel entertained.
Image 1
In Madonna’s Lucky Star music video she holds a pose where her hand is under her chin, curved
over and looking forward (see image 2 below). In this posture, it seems as though she is trying to be cute,
flirty, fun and hip because this posture is more delicate than the posture in the Hung Up music video.
Through this posture Madonna is saying that she wants you to look at her and notice her. She wants you
to feel good, happy and smile when you see this pose and it shows happiness through her facial
expression. She is giving the impression that she loves being noticed and being the center of attention
even though her posture is soft, light and you can tell that she has her own style. She is not afraid to show
4. it off to anyone who may see her. Even though both pictures of her are totally different they both have a
meaning to them and say different things about what she is trying to do with her look and style. Both
postures are very feminine and have that womanly aspect to them that Madonna is proud to show.
Image 2
Through music videos, Madonna has been permanently inscribed in popular culture and has had
an effect on the entire generation globally. Lucky Star made in 1983 and in the 1980s in the United States,
Music Television is also known as MTV was launched and music videos began to have a larger effect on
the record industry. Madonna was regarded as the most ground breaking female artist and noted for many
fashion incarnations during this time. The key board synthesizer and drum machine were most popular in
the 1980s, especially for new popular culture artists like Madonna. During these changes in music this
could have had an effect on her dancing in her music videos and the way she chose her style.
In her Lucky Star music video (see images 3, 4, 5 below) her movement is easy flow, free flow,
and her weight is light and airy. She releases her body with her chest lifting to the sky and uses spirals
and a screw-like movements with her shapes by twisting from the front to the back. Madonna utilizes
space on a high, medium and low level in her movement, because she jumps, stays on a walking level and
goes down to the floor. She also uses proximal movement with her body by utilizing shoulder rolls,
rolling her hips in a circle and rolling her head. Her relationship with the space is direct and indirect
5. because at some points you can tell where her focus is going to, but at other times her focus is internal.
There are some moments where her movement becomes bouncy and buoyant, which make her movement
seem so free and uncontrolled. Madonna’s movement seems very effortless and she looks very confident
and comfortable dancing in this music video.
Images 3, 4 and 5
Madonna’s Hung Up music video was created in 2005 and through the 2000s became a new
millennium. In the 2000s pop culture and the usages of computer generated imagery became more
popular. Online films and music videos became more popular as the music industry had reached its
commercial peaks. Britney Spears and Beyoncé were becoming best female artists so Madonna was
competing with a younger generation in order to stay on top of the charts so she had to change up her
style in music as well as dance.
Furthermore, in the Hung Up music video we can see that Madonna has used inspiration from
these changes because her videos became more modern. In addition, her use of dance had more technique
and her dance training becomes more effective. During her shoot for the video Madonna says a quote that
is very interesting “I am sure Dancing Queen was written about me! It’s not dance music, to me there’s
something really poetic about it. ‘I want to dance, I want to feel free, buoyant, happy, placated.” The
movement in this video (see images 5, 6, 7 below) is very bound flow and controlled because her dance
technique is showing through the movement. Her weight is very powerful and strong and her relationship
with the space is very direct. When she is dancing you can tell where her focus is and her intent with the
6. movement. She makes elongated, pyramid-like and arc-like shapes because at some moments she is
stretching on the floor in second position and she also makes a curve in her back while she is standing up.
Madonna carves and slashes through the space using her arms and also uses her whole kinesphere. She
does turns and jazz slides across the floor showing her range of space.
Images 5, 6, 7
My discoveries through my research allowed me to see how much Madonna has changed her
dance style through the decades. She moves so different in both music videos, but still utilizes dance to
give off a powerful intention in her movement quality. Madonna still uses dance to make her music
videos interesting and engaging, but also has the ability to keep up with generations to make herself
become reinvented. Her movements in these music videos remind me so much of jazz dance because of
her use of jumps, turns, slides and foot patterns. Even though she utilizes these movements in both videos
she dances the movement with a different quality. For example, through effort, weight, time, space, body
and relationship Madonna know how to move her body, but she also knows how to show off different
qualities through her movement and make it look like her dancing is totally different. Throughout the
decades, Madonna has found a new way to express herself through dance and become even more
empowered.
7. Work cited
1. Daly, “Movement Analysis: Piecing Together the Puzzle”
2. O’Brien, Lucy, “Madonna Like an Icon”, (2007)
3. Faith, Karlene, “Madonna Bawdy & Soul”’ (1997)
4. Fouz-Hernandez, Santiago, “Madonna’s Drowned Worlds New Approaches to her Cultural
Transformation, (2004)
5. Garofalo, Reebee, “Rockin’ Out Popular Music in the USA, (1997)
