David Bowie's 1983 music video for "Let's Dance" tells the narrative of an indigenous Australian couple struggling against westernization. Shot in an Australian village bar, the video juxtaposes indigenous and westernized culture through opposing imagery and color schemes. It uses split screens and flashbacks to portray the couple's isolation and loss of their traditional way of life. Both conceptual and performance-based, the video highlights the history of indigenous Australians and makes a statement against racism and oppression through its storytelling.

1. APPLYING THE CONCEPT
OF NARRATIVE
(REVISED CASE STUDY)
DAVID BOWIE LET’S DANCE (1983)// MY OWN PRODUCTION
...."I think that's what this record came out of. I was sort of disappointed with the way synthesizers have
bullied music into a kind of cold place. So much of the music that's being made at the moment is very earnest.
It doesn't have that quality of necessity that music used to have; it's become style over content. So in a
natural progression, I just went back to the kinds of music that really excited me when I started. I was
listening to people like Buddy Guy, Red Prysock, Alan Freed big bands. Stuff like that has such a dynamic,
enthusiastic quality; it's the enthusiasm that I actually was looking for.”
....The album was recorded in three weeks ("I must try to better that next time," Bowie cackles), and simplicity
was the keynote all the way. "John Lennon once said to me, I Look, it's very simple - say what you mean, make it
rhyme and put a back beat to it.' And he was right: 'Instant karma's gonna get you,' boom. I keep comin' back to
that these days. He was right, man. There is no more than that. There is no more.
....Simplicity and directness of expression have become a passion for him now, he says. "I've never admitted
this before - because it's never been true before - but this album is kind of tentative. I mean, I only kind of
touched the edge of what I really want to do. I want to go further, much further, with the next one.
....And what will that be, then?
...."A protest album, I Suppose.”
-BOWIE ON LET’S DANCE
(http://www.bowiedownunder.com/letsdancevideos/letsdancevideos.htm)

2. LET’S DANCE (1983)
"Let's Dance" is the title song from English singer-songwriter David Bowie's 1983 album of the
same name. It was also released as the first single from that album in 1983, and went on to
become one of his biggest-selling tracks.”
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let%27s_Dance_(David_Bowie_song)
The success of the album surprised Bowie. In 1997, he said "at the time, Let's Dance was not
mainstream. It was virtually a new kind of hybrid, using blues-rock guitar against a dance
format. There wasn't anything else that really quite sounded like that at the time. So it only
seems commercial in hindsight because it sold so many copies. It was great in its way, but it put
me in a real corner in that it fucked with my integrity.”
Bowie recalled, “It was a good record, but it was only meant as a one-off project. I had every
intention of continuing to do some unusual material after that. But the success of that record
really forced me, in a way, to continue the beast. It was my own doing, of course, but I felt,
after a few years, that I had gotten stuck."
Bowie described the video
for Let’s Dance as "very
simple, very direct"
statements against racism
and oppression.
Joining other artists such
as Kate Bush(with her
song/video ‘The Dreaming in
1982) Bowie highlighted the
history of the indigenous
Australian population.

3. APPLYING THE CONCEPT OF
NARRATIVE
TO LET’S DANCEDavid Bowie’s Let’s Dance, although not conventional Bowie style in terms of lyrics and
sound, was a surprising hit with the new aspects of genre Bowie used and the focus
behind the song. The 1983 music video for Let’s Dance is shot in a bar in the
Australian village of Carinda. The video reflects both a conceptual and performance
piece focusing on Bowie and the position of the indigenous Australians, following a
couple’s struggle against the metaphors of westernisation.
Such struggles are represented throughout the video and with the use of mise-en-scene,
editing and camerawork, the narrative of the story becomes very clear.
The video features a juxtaposition between the culture of the indigenous Australians and
the westernised culture of Sydney. Claude Levi Strauss suggests that narratives are
formed with the use of binary opposition, the effect created in this video being the
sense of loss of land/freedom caused by westernisation.
This opposition is presented through various shots such as the industrial workplace at
1.43 presenting the westernised aspect, and the shot of the couple painting the
traditional Aboriginal art on the walls at 2.48 reflecting their life before.

4. APPLYING NARRATIVE TO MY OWN PRODUCTION
My own production uses a montage narrative, with the use
of spilt screen to portray our main character’s sense of
solitude. The split screen effect was used to suggest
the length of time our character spends alone, the
different location was also used for this reason however
the split screen helps to emphasise the passing of time.
The piece also could present the use of analepsis, flashing back to an earlier point in the
narrative/creating a timeline that does not present reality, to reflect this juxtaposition.
This is created through the colour alteration, the colors used for the industrial sequences
are greens, blues and greys that oppose the brightly lit warm tones of the sequences of the
rural areas. This again creates this binary opposition between the two cultures and
presents the narrative for the story- that being the comment on racism and westernisation.
The colour alteration may also have been used to suggest a bleakness to the western world,
the sense of loss is again portrayed through this as the audience see the rural areas/the
life of the indigenous Australians as the more desirable option.
Although the music
video is both
performance and
conceptual the lyrics
are only portrayed
through the shots of
Bowie’s singing, the
references to
dancing, and more
specifically the “red
shoes” mentioned in
the song.