Synopsis

Set across Sydney and rural New South Wales, the video follows two young Aboriginal people as they move between traditional culture and the pressures of modern consumer life. Red shoes, television images, advertisements, machinery, and the isolated landscape become recurring symbols of seduction and displacement. David Bowie appears as a detached observer and performer, while the couple's journey connects the song's invitation to dance with a more uneasy portrait of cultural intrusion, inequality, and changing identity.

Factoids & Trivia

• The video was filmed in Australia in February 1983, during the same trip as the video for "China Girl."

• Terry Roberts and Joelene King, who appear as the young couple, were students of Sydney's Aboriginal Islander Dance Theatre.

• Locations included Sydney, Warrumbungle National Park, and the rural New South Wales town of Carinda. The Carinda pub became one of the video's most recognizable settings.

• The clip was conceived as more than a straightforward performance piece. Its imagery contrasts Aboriginal life with advertising, consumer goods, and symbols of imported popular culture.

• "Let's Dance" marked a major shift in Bowie's public image. Released in 1983, the song and its videos helped introduce him to a much larger mainstream audience.

• A behind-the-scenes documentary, "Let's Dance: Bowie Down Under," premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in February 2015.