The Sandman

Adam Murray served as Choreographer and Movement Director on Season 2 of The Sandman, bringing a bold, immersive physical language to one of the series’ most ambitious large-scale sequences. Working within a highly collaborative production environment and alongside a supportive principal cast, Adam led a company of professional dancers and committed supporting artists to create a fully realised 1990s rave experience that felt both authentic and cinematically heightened.

Director Jamie Childs envisioned a visceral club environment rooted in 90s rave culture, punctuated by controlled pockets of unison choreography performed by elevated podium dancers. To preserve spontaneity and avoid locking the scene to a pre-selected track, Jamie chose not to commit to specific playback music during filming, while dialogue was simultaneously being captured on set. To solve this technically complex challenge, Adam implemented a live cueing system using in-ear monitors for the dancers, allowing him to direct and adjust choreography in real time without knowing which track would ultimately be used or how long the music would run.

This approach demanded acute musical instinct, spatial awareness, and rapid creative decision-making, effectively turning the sequence into a live performance within a controlled film set. Adam’s movement direction balanced chaos and structure, ensuring the rave felt raw and euphoric while still delivering strong visual composition for camera. The result was a high-energy, story-driven environment that fused atmosphere, choreography, and narrative tension, transforming the scene into more than background action and instead a living, breathing extension of the world of The Sandman.