Harry Styles’ Dancers Reveal Grammys Performance Went In The Wrong Direction Due To “Technical Issues”
A few days after Harry Styles’ Sunday night performance of his single As It Was on the 65th Grammy stage in Crypto.com Arena, Los Angeles, critics have described it as lackluster, explaining that something was “off.”
In reaction to the criticism, some of the dancers on the stage with Harry have come forward to explain the issue with the performance. One of Harry’s backup dancers, Brandon Mathis, shared on his Instagram story: “The moment the curtain opened, and it was time to perform, our turntable started spinning in reverse, backward, freaking all of us out on live television.”
“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,” Brandon Mathis added.
The dancer commented on the Grammy-winning artist’s professionalism despite the challenge they were experiencing before an A-list audience. He continues on his Instagram stories: “Talk about professionalism!”
In a TikTok video that has now been deleted, another dancer, Dexter Da Rocha, echoed Brandon Mathis, saying: “Yoann Bourgeois and his associate Kerem made this beautiful, beautiful piece on a moving turntable, so there are 12 of us, we’re all on the turntable and we rehearsed for ten days getting down these beautiful formations and sliding off the turntable…and Harry did such a good job integrating into it and had a beautiful duet and just making this incredible, morphing, cool artistic s**t.”
The dancer added more details on how Harry handled the mishap on stage: “And Harry did such a good job like integrating into it and had this beautiful duet and all this stuff, and this whole time we’re practicing with the turntable counterclockwise. We did it loads of times and got it down to the point where we were at dress rehearsal, it was spotless and beautiful.”
Further explaining that the moment they realized the issue, they tried to “get the attention of the technician,” but it was on live television; they “couldn’t yell,” so the technicians didn’t hear them.
Addressing fans who described the performance as subpar, the dancer noted that though this was what they dealt with onstage, “news outlets didn’t know that’s what was happening, so they called it lethargic or boring.”Despite Harry’s challenges on stage with his performance, the Late Night Talking hitmaker took home the Album of the Year award, with his Grammys acceptance speech now stirring online reactions.
