There is a notion that I often have bouncing around my head — the determination to dance through any pain. I find the idea of applying your emotional energy and determination to something artful, expressive and celebratory, whether literally of metaphorically, appealing. Every so often it is all we have left. The only coping mechanism is to just keep moving.
The ultimate tribute to dancing through a break-up is Robyn’s glorious Dancing On My Own. It is a song that pulses like the rapid heartbeats stimulated by the sight of a lover moving on, the energy thrown at the dancefloor like a Hail Mary.
Gabrielle Macafee’s Dance Myself To Death! comes from that same place — not dancing because you want to, but because it is the only option short of a breakdown… Dancing as a form of camouflage rooted in the need to blend in. Your remaining choices are to stop and cry, or to just-keep-dancing.
The song shares the emotionally resonant yet upbeat electronic pop feel of Dancing On My Own, but adds a little space. Dance Myself To Death! feels like the prequel to Robyn’s song — it is the knowing start to an evening that has all the trappings of being messy before it has even begun.
In reality, it feels likely that Dance Myself… has a more profound meaning. Having abandoned her studies in classical voice following a traumatic brain injury, Macafee made the move to pop music as a method of healing and moving on. The dancing she is doing? It is the literal act of creating her music.
Check out Dance Myself To Death! below, and look out for Gabrielle Macafee’s appropriately titled forthcoming debut EP, Wreck Of A Night, soon.