Ryan_Heffington

Ryan Heffington

Ryan Heffington

American dancer and choreographer


Ryan Heffington (born June 7, 1973) is an American dancer and choreographer based in Los Angeles. He was nominated for two Grammy Awards for choreographing the music videos for Arcade Fire's "We Exist" (2013) and Sia's "Chandelier" (2014), winning a VMA Award for the latter.

Quick Facts Born, Occupation(s) ...

Early life

Heffington was born in Yuba City, California. He has danced since he was young, but has never received any formal training. He moved from Yuba City to Los Angeles at the age of 18.[1]

Career

In the mid-1990s, Heffington co-created the sexy Psycho Dance Sho' with Bubba Carr, and in the late 2000s he was the artistic director for the experimental modern dance company Hysterica.[1] From 2006 to 2009, Heffington lead the dance troupe Fingered, which combined fast-paced Martha Graham-style choreography with genderbending costumes designed by Heffington.[2] He has performed at bars and clubs, as well as MOCA, LACMA, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Saturday Night Live, Walt Disney Concert Hall, the UCLA Hammer Museum and Coachella.[3]

Heffington is best known for choreographing the music videos for Arcade Fire's "We Exist" (2013) and Sia's "Chandelier" (2014),[4][5] both of which were nominated for Grammy Awards,[6] and the latter of which won him a VMA Award.[7] Other Sia videos that Heffington has choreographed include "Elastic Heart", "Big Girls Cry", "Cheap Thrills" and "The Greatest".[8] Sia and Heffington's collaborations have "done more to raise the standards of dance in pop music than nearly any current artist integrating the forms."[9] He has also worked with FKA Twigs and Britney Spears, and made several appearances on RuPaul's Drag Race.[10]

Heffington created the choreography for the science fiction series The OA, which debuted on Netflix in December 2016.[11]

More of his work can be seen in television, film and onstage around the world, including the first season finale of HBO's Euphoria, Prime Video's Transparent, Spike Jonze's commercials for Kenzo (winner of the highest honor, the Titanium Lion @ the 2017 Cannes Film Festival), Apple's “Welcome Homepod” featuring FKA Twigs, and Edgar Wright's critically acclaimed 2017 film Baby Driver.[12][13]

Heffington was the owner of The Sweat Spot, a dance studio in Silver Lake, Los Angeles.[14] The space offered classes for both professional dancers and beginners in a casual atmosphere. Heffington decided to open the studio after he had hosted a roving event called Sweaty Sundays.[1] Although the studio closed in 2020, Heffington still hosts Sweatfest and Wet Wednesdays on Instagram to thousands of dancers live.

More recently, Heffington choreographed Lin-Manuel Miranda's 2021 film adaptation of the Jonathan Larson musical tick, tick... BOOM![15] and made his acting debut in Paul Thomas Anderson's Licorice Pizza.[16]

Filmography

Music Videos

More information Year, Title ...

Commercials

More information Year, Commercial ...

Awards and nominations

More information Year, Award ...

References

  1. "Dig Out the Spandex and Feel the Burn". The New York Times. 13 August 2009. Archived from the original on 1 May 2017. Retrieved 25 February 2017.
  2. Vesilind, Emili (6 April 2008). "Real Trouper". Archived from the original on 13 August 2016. Retrieved 22 June 2016 via LA Times.
  3. Sasha Bronner Senior Reporter, The Huffington Post (28 July 2012). "Meet The Man Behind The Craziest Dance Studio In Town". HuffPost. Archived from the original on 21 August 2016. Retrieved 22 June 2016.
  4. "2014 In Music Through The Eyes Of A Choreographer". NPR. Archived from the original on 2017-07-12. Retrieved 2018-04-04.
  5. Heyman, Jessie (27 April 2015). ""Chandelier" Choreographer Ryan Heffington on Dancing in Spring's Best Denim". Archived from the original on 2016-06-10. Retrieved 2016-06-22.
  6. "Ryan Heffington on Choreographing Sia's 'Chandelier' and 'Elastic Heart' Videos". 16 January 2015. Archived from the original on 12 August 2016. Retrieved 22 June 2016.
  7. "Here's Your Full List of 2014 VMA Winners". MTV News. 25 August 2014. Archived from the original on 19 November 2014. Retrieved 1 November 2016.
  8. Kourlas, Gia. "For Sia, Dance Is Where the Human and the Weird Intersect" Archived 2017-08-13 at the Wayback Machine, The New York Times, 19 July 2016, accessed 31 October 2016.
  9. "Review: Movement Drives the Music at FKA twigs's 'Congregata'". The New York Times. 19 May 2015. Archived from the original on 31 December 2015. Retrieved 25 February 2017.
  10. Murphy, Mekado (27 June 2017). "How They Pulled Off the Perfectly Timed Stunts in ‘Baby Driver’" Archived 2019-03-28 at the Wayback Machine, The New York Times. Retrieved 7 July 2017.
  11. "The Sweat Spot". Archived from the original on 2016-08-27. Retrieved 2016-06-22.
  12. Evans, Greg (2020-01-27). "'Chandelier' Choreographer Ryan Heffington Joins Lin-Manuel Miranda's 'tick, tick…BOOM!' For Netflix". Deadline. Archived from the original on 2020-04-08. Retrieved 2020-04-28.
  13. "'Licorice Pizza' – A Conversation with P.T. Anderson About His New Slice of Nostalgia". The Village Voice. 2021-12-06. Archived from the original on 2021-12-28. Retrieved 2021-12-28.
  14. "MTV Video Music Awards 2014: Winners". MTV.com. August 8, 2014. Archived from the original on November 19, 2014. Retrieved January 11, 2017.
  15. "MTV Video Music Awards 2015: The Winners Are…". Billboard. August 30, 2015. Archived from the original on September 13, 2015. Retrieved January 11, 2017.
  16. "UK Music video awards winners 2016". ukmva.com. 11 January 2017. Archived from the original on 19 September 2017. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  17. "Kendrick Lamar, Katy Perry and the Weeknd Lead 2017 MTV VMAs Nominations as Gendered Categories Eliminated". People.com. 25 July 2017. Archived from the original on 21 August 2017. Retrieved 21 August 2017.
  18. "UK MVA 2017 shortlist". ukmva.com. 23 September 2017. Archived from the original on 23 September 2017. Retrieved 23 September 2017.
  19. "Ryan Heffington - Emmy Awards and Nominations". Archived from the original on November 25, 2022. Retrieved November 25, 2022.

Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Ryan_Heffington, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.