Music Video – Nana M. Rose

A music video created for Dutch singer songwriter Nana M. Rose and her debut song Love Me Like I Love You.

Below, Nana & Sanne explain what the song and the video are about:

Sanne: After Nana had told me what Love Me Like I Love You was about (being trapped in your own feeling of always want to be the best version of yourself for everybody surrounding you, and, loosing your own true self while doing so ), I immediately felt that I would love to tell this personal story in an abstract, poetic kind of way. As Nana said, she felt the weight of all these self-imposed duties, which to me felt like a frame within which her moves and actions were limited. This was a frame that she felt others had put up for her, but which she actually created herself. So I felt dancer should portray this ‘frame’.

The dancers in the video symbolize ‘The Others’, all the people Nana tried to be perfect for. Together they form this ‘frame’ of self imposed duties. The scene in which the dancers put all their hands on Nana and try to control her movement is a quite literal translation of this idea. In the beginning, Nana keeps the dancers close and even helps them by putting their hands on her body to embrace her. In this way, she is actually inviting ‘the other’ to control her. But as the song progresses, there are more dancers, more hands, more places that need attention, and Nana is starting to suffocate. She needs to escape, and that’s the point where she’s starting to detach herself from the hands and the dancers. Im very happy with how these scenes turned out. I was so happy with this beautiful mixed group of female dancers, the clothes, and Nana’s performance, it makes it very magical.

As for the location, I was looking for a location that would represent the emotion of the song. The song being so poetic and tender, yet so strong and empowering, reminded me of Portrait de La Jeune Fille en Feu, an extraordinary film. I was so impressed by the scenes they shot in the dunes. It had such a scenic and dreamy air around it, but at the same time it exuded so much strength. I thought this really resonated with the concept of the whole song, and so we decided to shoot the story in the dunes near Rotterdam (the Netherlands).

Nana: In all the other scenes we wanted to implement this same process from feeling suffocated to being free. For example, there’s this scene where the dancers and I are standing in the high grass. The dancers are looking my way with a controlling gaze, while I am in the middle being all dressed up, awkward, feeling overpowered. As the video progresses, I manage to find my own movements within this group. Another example is one of my favourite scenes, in which I’m surrounded by the dancers and I am standing there in the green dress (I felt like such a queen!). The group eventually falls to the ground, while I keep standing. To me this scene felt so freeing and I loved how strong the image turned out. As if I spoke my magic spell and ended the control of ‘the others’.