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Dance in Film · 2019

Dancing with a Stranger (2019)

Sean Bankhead makes Normani's dancing the physical counterpoint to Sam Smith's solitude: her solo and ensemble phrases move through Vaughan Arnell's super-modern house while ghostlike projected dancers surround Smith. Because the singers never meet, the choreography—not a shared duet—becomes the video's bridge between their separate performances.

Dancing with a Stranger is a 2019 dance film centred on ballroom and social dance. For dancers, it's a chance to see the style performed on screen — the phrasing, partnering, and musicality that the same dances carry onto a real floor.

Jump to the 2 indexed dance sequences ↓

Where to watch: Free authorized full video on Sam Smith's official YouTube channel; a current U.S. Apple Music video listing was verified 2026-08-09. Availability may change.

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The complete work.

The dance sequences in Dancing with a Stranger

2 sequences — what is danced, by whom, and where to find it.

  1. Holographic dancers haunting the modern house

    Commercial / Industry Dance

    Choreography Brendon Hansford

    Gender-ambiguous holographic dancers coming alive in and around Sam Smith inside the stark futuristic house.

    The spectral ensemble makes absence physical: commercial movement appears as an unstable projection around the solitary singer, translating an ephemeral connection into bodies that can vanish.

    Watch this sequence · The full film is on YouTube; the link opens at this sequence. The official full-work YouTube page was opened. Hansford directly identifies himself as choreographer and movement director for the holographic dancers; Promo News separately credits Sean Bankhead as choreographer for the video overall, so this row limits Hansford’s assignment to the ensemble his portfolio explicitly describes and records the possible divided duties. No scene timestamp, dancer names, or Legend slug was inferred.

  2. Normani's separate dance performance

    Commercial / Industry Dance

    Danced by Normani · Choreography Sean Bankhead

    Normani’s explosive dance passages arriving as the video dovetails her performance with Smith’s solitary scenes.

    Keeping Normani physically separate from Smith lets her choreography supply the release that the other half of the duet withholds, while the edit makes the two performances answer each other without a meeting.

    Watch this sequence · The full film is on YouTube; the link opens at this sequence. The official full-work YouTube page was opened; Sean Bankhead’s official music-video portfolio lists the work and Promo News credits him as choreographer. Hansford separately claims choreographer/movement-director credit for the futuristic video, so the record treats the credits as potentially divided rather than erasing the conflict. The established sean-bankhead slug is preserved from the verified LODance references. No scene timestamp was inferred.

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