Troye Sivan And Ariana Grande’s Joyous Music Video Is Inspired By ‘High School Musical’
Troye Sivan's head is very clearly in the game.
Ahead of releasing his sophomore album Bloom next month, Australian pop wunderkind Troye Sivan has dropped the music video for ‘Dance To This’, his sultry duet with Ariana Grande. And while his last video, ‘Bloom’, was packed with more references to queer artists than we could count, his latest effort sources inspiration from a little-known film called High School Musical.
While ‘Dance To This’ is a lover’s duet about a cosy night in (complete with innuendo that The Project‘s panelists were weirdly obsessed with), the music video recasts the song as a meeting between two new friends, connecting through their enthusiasm on an otherwise lethargic dance-floor.
Directed by Bardia Zeinali (who was behind the camera for ‘Bloom’, too), the video sees Sivan and Grande do karaoke to a less-than-enthused audience in a recreation hall. It’s a real joy to watch: the concept is understated and centres the duo’s natural chemistry together, suiting the song’s mellow tone.
While the video is in line with the excellent trope of having musicians pour their heart out to an uninterested crowd (see ‘Maps’, ‘Sweet Nothing’, ‘Sadness Is A Blessing’), Sivan shared on twitter the music video’s direct inspirations: The Knife’s video for ‘Pass It On’, alongside Grease and High School Musical — oh, and a mysterious gif of Cher spinning, naturally.
The DTT vid was inspired literally by High School Musical and Grease and Pass This On by the Knife and a gif of Cher spinning around that i cant find rn
— troye sivan (@troyesivan) July 19, 2018
Of those, we see High School Musical the clearest. The clip echoes the 2006 film’s very first scene, where a baby-faced Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens are forced to duet ‘Start Of Something New’ at an awkward New Year’s Eve party at a ski lodge. They bond through the power of song — the rest, of course, is history.
As a few astute fans point out, Sivan’s outfit is clearly indebted to Efron’s blue-frilled suit (for accuracy’s sake, this was actually worn in the series’ third instalment), and the wood-panelled hall is reminiscent of the film’s ski lodge.
i can’t get over this high school musical reference in the dance to this video troye LITERALLY has the same face as troy bolton it’s funny how the legend jumps out all of the sudden! #dancetothis pic.twitter.com/yT3fbVtKG7
— ryãn (@granderuled) July 19, 2018
i see what your saying now about the hsm thing💛 @ArianaGrande @troyesivan pic.twitter.com/lZKtOEn4Rd
— moonlight (@softlylovin) July 19, 2018
It’s a cute nod — but even if you really hate High School Musical (??), the video’s well worth four minutes of your day. Watch it below.