Jimmy Fallon Is Loving This Spike Jonze/Ryan Heffington Dance Short—and You Will Too

September 13, 2017

Remember that Spike Jonze/Ryan Heffington/Opening Ceremony collab we mentioned a few weeks back? It’s here. Changers: A Dance Story (OC’s show for New York Fashion Week) is currently running at La Mama through tomorrow. While the remaining performances are unsurprisingly sold out, the piece got a much wider audience last night, thanks to an appearance on “The Tonight Show” with Jimmy Fallon.

In what may very well be a late-night first, Jonze, the project’s director, shot a short-film version excerpting 3:30 minutes of Changers on live TV.

Actors Lakeith Stanfield (Get Out) and Mia Wasikowska (Alice Through the Looking Glass) star as a perky couple, who upon waking dive into a light-hearted, playful dance routine. True to Heffington’s choreographic leanings, it’s peppered with face-framing gestures—he even makes Wasikowska’s repeated tucking of her hair behind her ears part of the jig.


Wasikowska and Stanfield on “The Tonight Show.” Photo credit: NBC/Andrew Lipovsky.

While this isn’t Wasikowska’s first foray into dance—she seriously trained in ballet as a young teen in her native Australia—Stanfield’s experience is more unusual. According to a recent New York Times article, Jonze knew he wanted Stanfield for his upcoming “dance story” when he happened upon a clip of him from the Golden Globes. All it took was Stanfield’s hula-hooping celebratory hip sway, when he and the team of “Atlanta” won best TV series for comedy and musical programs, and Jonze was hooked.

Check out this short clip from Changers for yourself, and see if you aren’t bobbing along by the end.

Curious what this looked like from audience’s perspective at “The Tonight Show”? Check out their point of view with this alternate video: