Join the Movement

 

Julie McDonald had a dream: she wanted to mobilize dancers across the country to register and turn out to vote. And she was in a unique position to engage them: Julie’s firm McDonald Selznick and Associates is the biggest dance agency in the film, theater, commercial, TV, touring and live event world.

 

Julie corralled her friend and frequent co-conspirator, Pam Tarr, to produce a video for social media that would inspire dancers everywhere to mobilize. Julie engaged the top choreographers on her roster (Kenny Ortega, Chloe Arnold) as well as friends in the dance world (Debbie Allen, Wade Robson), and Pam brought in brilliant filmmakers across the country to capture the dances that were choreographed.

 

Over three weeks, the totally pro-bono project grew in scope. Macy Grey offered a new song ”Come Together” for the sound track, iconic video director Sam Bayer came on to direct the central footage of dancers on stage and top editorial house Spotwelders agreed to pull it all together.

 

Videos were shot of ballet in the streets of New York, hip hop in Miami and Bollywood dancers in LA. Debbie Allen’s top students at her academy and dancers on the set of Kenny Ortega’s newest film all enthusiastically offered their art to encourage everyone to get out and vote. Concurrently, a dynamic social media team built and populated platforms with great graphics, individual videos of each choreographed piece and ultimately the anthem video that included all the dances cut together.

 

The video was viewed widely on social media platforms, and though we didn’t have the means to measure resulting turnout, we knew that we’d created a way for dancers to engage politically in elections to come.