"There’s a raw, instinctive quality to Goebel’s routines: The dancers look as if they aren’t just dancing but are following an elemental urge."

"Over the last decade, pop stars have sought out this off-kilter vision of how female bodies can move. As a result, Goebel is reshaping what pop choreography looks like — and exploding our ideas of what makes a femme body desirable.... It’s not as if this overt display of sexuality has vanished from contemporary pop choreography.... But Goebel’s routines push past titillation into startling, even disturbing territory.... In a routine she choreographed for Nike during Paris couture week, the dancers rolled and thrust their chests forward in a unsettling, Frankenstein-ish lurch, before leaping from the stage and strutting forward, arms crossed, like something Gene Kelly might do in 'Singin’ in the Rain.'"

Writes Coralie Kraft, in "Parris Goebel Is Changing the Way Women Move" (NYT)(free-access link, so you can see the many video clips of what that prose describes). Goebel was the choreographer for Rihanna at the 2023 Super Bowl — "sexy — hands stroking, chests heaving — but strange."

If that made you think of "Puttin' on the Ritz," here's the relevant "Young Frankenstein" clip. If it made you think of "Thriller," go here. If you got hung up on "femme," in the phrase "femme body" — why not "woman's body"? — so did I. But — short of a "femme bodysuit," on sale at Amazon — I didn't find anything I wanted to link, but I did encounter some godawful academic writing that made me feel sorry for the kids going to college these days.