Sherrie Silver, the choreographer for Childish Gambino’s “This Is America” video, is originally from Huye District, Rwanda and has performed in around 30 countries.
In an interview with Forbes, Silver explained that she is planning to come back to Rwanda and celebrate next week by throwing a [party] for homeless and underprivileged and disabled kids.
Asked on what inspired her, she said that standing up for her culture was upfront in what moved her.
“For me, I stand for taking Africa to the world and taking the world to Africa. I feel like it’s such a unique and diverse culture. There’s so many countries in Africa, and everyone just needs to know about it, and everyone needs to know how we dance, everyone needs to know what we eat. I think we’re really interesting, and this is our time to shine… I want you, for example, to watch Donald’s video and see the kids and me dancing in it, and I want you to want to join in, and I want you to feel like these kids just landed from Africa.” she said.
Silver said that Glover’s team contacted her after seeing some of her videos, and was especially interested in her work with children.
“I basically wanted to bring my authentic style from different parts of Africa—not just my country—because I felt that it was very important to represent a lot of the continent,” she said of her choreography for the video. :With the song being called ‘This is America,’ I wanted to make sure that there were some American references as well. That’s why you got dances in there like the Shoot and the Reverse and the Nene. And, obviously, Donald added his own style of movement.” Silver said.
Only yesterday, she released a tutorial of the dance moves found in the clip. As she explains at the start of the guide, she promised to share step-by-step instructions as soon as the video reached 100,000 million views.
As of this posting which has surpassed 120,000 million views at the moment, begins with Glover dancing to afro-beat pop. The Atlanta star, who makes music under the moniker Childish Gambino, is flexing for the camera, his facial expressions echoing the troubling lyrics of the song.
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