Harry Styles and his dancers discover on live TV the show’s stage didn’t just go in one direction.
Image source, ReutersTwo of Harry Styles’ dancers have said they had to quickly adapt their Grammy Awards routine after the stage started spinning in the wrong direction.
The ex-One Direction star performed his single As It Was at Sunday’s ceremony, where he won album of the year.
The British singer and his dancers performed on a giant turntable, and rehearsed with it revolving one way.
But on the night, it started spinning the opposite way, “freaking us all out on live television”, one dancer said.
“The moment the curtain opened and it was time to perform, our turntable started spinning in reverse, backward,” explained dancer Brandon Mathis.
“There was nothing we could do to stop it. So after a week of rehearsing this piece perfectly going one way, the moment it’s time to perform, it starts going the other way, and in real time we have to troubleshoot and do a complete piece in reverse.
“Talk about professionalism,” he added in his explanation on his Instagram story, which is no longer available.
Image source, Reuters
Image source, Reuters
Image source, Reuters
His account was echoed by another back-up dancer, Dexter Da Rocha, in a since-deleted TikTok post.
“We rehearsed for 10 days getting down these beautiful formations and sliding off the turntable… and Harry did such a good job integrating into it,” Da Rocha explained.
“This whole time we’re practicing with the turntable counter-clockwise. We did it loads of times and got it down to the point where we were at dress rehearsal, it was spotless and beautiful.”
But when the turntable started turning the wrong way on the night, Da Rocha said the dancers tried to “get the attention of the technician”, but it was live TV and they “couldn’t yell” so the technician didn’t hear them.
“So, to switch all those patterns on the spot, having not even walked in that direction… like it sounds it’d be easy to walk, it’s like a treadmill, but I swear to god, since it’s circular, it pulls you in different directions and it’s such a special type of balance.”
Da Rocha praised Styles, saying he “did his best to be able to walk and reverse everything while he was singing and reverse his entire duet, which was incredible”.
Image source, Reuters
The Recording Academy, the organisation behind the Grammys, has not yet responded to the BBC’s request for comment.
Styles won two of the six Grammys he was nominated for on Sunday – best pop vocal album and album of the year for Harry’s House.
Album of the year is widely seen as the night’s top prize, and Styles held off competition from artists including Adele, Lizzo, Coldplay and Beyoncé, who had widely been seen as the frontrunner.
Accepting the award, Styles said: “I’ve been so inspired by every artist in this category with me.
“But it’s important for us to remember that there’s no such thing as the best in music. This doesn’t happen very often to people like me so this is very nice, thank you.”