Florence Welch performs intricate, color-coded choreography in Florence and the Machine's artful "Big God" video.

Autumn de Wilde directed the video, which focuses on Welch and a group of dancers as they splash and stomp through a light pool of water against a midnight-black background. At one point, everyone but Welch levitates above ground; the singer ends the piece on her own, writhing around as the camera zooms closer.

Welch spoke about both the song and video, saying, “‘Big God’ was written about that feeling when someone has not replied to your text, the modern phenomenon of ‘ghosting,’ which is one of my favorite words but not my favorite feeling,” she said. “I was describing it to someone and they said to me ‘You need a big god,’ as if the need in me were so cavernous, it would take something enormous to fill it. Probably something bigger than a text message.”

She described “Big God” as a “very physical song” that conjured a “dance piece” in her head as she wrote it. “To co-choreograph something with Akram Khan was a huge honour,” she said. “Autumn de Wilde fully understood what I was trying to do. The power of the desire within the void, left with yourself to rage and wonder and really it is yourself you are raging against. Not the ghost.”

Khan added, “For me, this encounter with Florence and her powerful song somehow navigated itself towards the element – water. But the direction of the dance also became a resistance to all things that wish to oppress, a sort of protest dance and yet a celebratory one towards a new found freedom.”

Florence and the Machine - Big God

CREDITS

Dirk Greene

Alex Bickel

Sarita d'Avignon

Dan Berk

Miky Wolf

Natalie Cleveland

Sarah Roebuck

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