Rejoice! You no longer need to feel bad about the secret giddy dancing you do when you hear your favourite song — that clumsy little foot shuffle on the tube you try to hide from your fellow grumpy commuters because you’re just really feeling the music — and it’s thanks to Perfume Genius. His new video for Wreath, released today, is a celebration of dancing like nobody’s watching, all across the world.
The video, the third from Perfume Genius’s latest album, No Shape, is comprised entirely of footage from a contest where the singer — AKA Mike Hadreas — asked fans simply to film themselves dancing to the song on social media, using their own choreography and generally feeling their own vibe. Over the past week Mike has been showcasing his five favourite entries, and uploaded the full version of the winning entry, Esperanza Kroger dancing freely in the streets of Cholula, Mexico (seen in the opening shots of Wreath).
Perfume Genius wanted the video, and the track itself, to capture the same sense of ecstatic freedom and abandon he feels in the studio, the release explains, and it’s safe to say it worked (it’s seriously hard to resist doing an awkward little at-desk-dance while watching it). The title of the album, No Shape, came from a fixation with transcending the limits of body and mind. Speaking to i-D earlier this year, Mike explained: “[It’s] like spiritually transcending… going to the next level of things.”
And there’s even more exciting news. Alongside the video — and kicking off his UK tour in November at Glasgow School of Art — Perfume Genius recently revealed the special guests that will be performing at an event he’s curating at the Roundhouse on Sunday 5 November. They include Austra, Baths, Julianna Barwick and Midnight Sister. It’s enough to make you dance with joy.
