Typhoon Haiyan Survivors Dance to Pharrell Williams-and They Are Incredible

Want to see a different side of Tacloban City's destruction? These survivors' moves will change how you think about resilience after chaos.

 

After four months of images of chaos, destruction, and grief-stricken families in the hardest-hit areas of the post-Haiyan Philippines, Belgian director Quentin Musset's take on Tacloban City's recovery is the last one you'd expect—and the best one you could hope for.

Set to Pharrell Williams' "Happy" from the movie Despicable Me 2, the video shows a different side of the survivors of Tacloban City—the most devastated area in the country.

From firemen to police officers, children to old folks, among devastated coconut groves and in the shadow of gigantic ships that flattened flimsy neighborhoods, the residents of Tacloban dance. And they're good.

Musset produced the video in collaboration with the United Nations Development Program and the city of Tacloban to offer a different perspective of the city's recovery—one of remarkable energy, resilience, and spirit.

Since it's posting on March 11, the video has gone viral in the Philippines, already garnering nearly 145,000 views.

Community   Culture
Rate this video 
Community
Trending Videos
Louis Theroux: The Settlers (2025)
62 min - Fourteen years after his first visit and 2011 film The Ultra Zionists, Louis Theroux meets some of the growing community of religious-nationalist Israelis who have settled in the West Bank.Louis...
How To Erase a People
22 min - They did it to Native Americans, to Palestinians like my family in 1948, and now Trump wants to do it again in Gaza. It's called 'forcible transfer,' and it kills something much greater than any...
RFK Jr. Is Wrong. Trump Is for the Oligarchs.
3 min - RFK Jr. says I'm wrong about Trump being on the side of the oligarchs. Rubbish. Theres never been a president LESS willing to stand up to oligarchs than Donald Trump. - Robert Reich
The Settlers (2016)
111 min - An intimate look at life inside the Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Following Israel's decisive victory in 1967s Six-Day War, hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens have settled the...
Robots And AI: The Future Is Automated And Every Job Is At Risk
16 min - Robots are already changing jobs as an endless array of robots enter our everyday lives. From trucking to service work to high-end jobs like doctors and lawyers, this documentary explores how...
Plutocracy: The History of Class War In The USA (2019)
560 min - Plutocracy,by filmmaker Scott Noble,is the first documentary series to comprehensively examine early American history through the lens of class.Support the filmmaker's next film with a donation...
Common Ground (trailer)
3 min - Sobering yet hopeful, Common Ground exposes the toxic interconnections of American farming policy, politics, and health, by sharing stories of destruction and healing across the United States and...
Trending Articles
Extra Long Videos
Transition Stories for Becoming a Global Eco-Civilization
Subscribe for $5/mo to Watch over 50 Patron-Exclusive Films
Subscribe $5/mo View All Patron Films

 

Your support keeps us ad-free and financially independent

Our 10,000+ video & article library is 99% free, ad-free, and entirely community-funded thanks to our patron subscribers!


Want to double your impact? You can subscribe for $10/mo or more as an extra show of support.