Beyoncé's "Run The World (Girls)" video has been streamed more than 13 million times since its release Wednesday night. A major part of the appeal can be attributed to the wicked choreography in the opening dance sequence.
Beyoncé's movements are in perfect sync with the song's metronome-precise rapid-fire beat. The choreography is drill team styled. The footwork switches up every few seconds, incorporating truncated bouts of stomping, hopping, and skipping gestures.
Beyoncé and her longtime choreographer Frank Gatson, Jr., were inspired by the Mozambique dance group Tofo Tofo when they saw a video of the guys dancing online last year.
"We prepared a lot for it," Frank told MTV. "We had seen something on YouTube; we had seen these three guys from Africa, this Mozambique African dance troupe ... we were like, 'Wow, this is an amazing movement.' And that movement has always been in the back of our head for the last year. From there, we talked about a lot of concepts."
Two of the Tofo Tofo dancers appear in the sequence with Beyoncé, and they perform parts of a routine from a video uploaded to YouTube in August 2009. Frank said it was important to have the guys showcased in the clip. "We say, 'Share the light, you sparkle brighter,' and we share our light with a lot of new, creative people," he said. "I feel like we really nailed it and again, my hats off to the Tofo Tofo guys, ‘cause none of us could imitate that. We had to bring them around to learn that [move], which is really, really interesting. They had such a great vocabulary of movement."
It took Beyoncé's team some time to track down the guys. "It was hard finding them," Frank said. "They were really in a remote area. We had to get the embassy people involved. That was a process that took about two months or more."
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