Quite literally, nothing was the same “As It Was” when Harry Styles took the stage to perform at the 2023 Grammys over the weekend; a few of his background dancers revealed that their giant spinning platform began rotating in the wrong direction while they were on live TV, throwing off their entire choreography.
The turntable — mimicking the visuals in Styles’ “As It Was” video — started spinning in reverse just as the curtain opened, dancer Brandon Mathis said in an Instagram story: “Backwards. Freaking all of us out on live television, and there was nothing we could do to stop it. In real time, we had to troubleshoot and try to do a complete piece in reverse. Talk about professionalism.”
Another dancer named Dexter took to TikTok to share some more behind-the-scenes information: “We rehearsed for 10 days getting down these beautiful formations and sliding off the table in a roll-off and just making this incredible, morphing, cool artistic shit and Harry did such a good job integrating into it,” they said. “This whole time were were practicing it with the turntable turning counterclockwise. It was difficult and it was frustrating making those patterns while something’s moving and having all this spatial awareness. At dress rehearsal, it was gorgeous, it was amazing. We get on stage for the performance, the performance starts and the turntable starts going the wrong way.”
Dexter added that multiple dancers were trying to covertly get their technicians’ attention to correct the malfunction — another video suggests Styles himself might’ve been trying to send a secret SOS. “Unfortunately news outlets didn’t know that was happening, so they called it lethargic or boring or whatever,” they said, commending Styles for adjusting to the reversed direction while continuing to sing. “We were just trying to fucking stay standing… But he won Album of the Year and we all have a good story to tell!”
See the mentioned clips below, and keep scrolling to watch Styles’ performance of “As It Was” at the Grammys, malfunctions and all.
Styles took home the Album of the Year Grammy for his most recent LP Harry’s House, beating out ABBA, Adele, Bad Bunny, Beyoncé, Mary J. Blige, Brandi Carlile, Coldplay, Kendrick Lamar, and Lizzo. “As It Was” also got nominated for Best Solo Pop Performance, Record of the Year, and Song of the Year. Revisit the full list of 2023 Grammy winners here, and head over to StubHub for tickets to his remaining “Love on Tour” dates, which hopefully won’t include technical issues.
The technical difficulty was the stage spinning the wrong way as soon as they stepped on it 😭😭 PROFESSIONALS cause they still killed it having to change it right at the last second pic.twitter.com/s9OJaEO808
Advertisement— 🌻Amber🌻 (@Ambee789) February 6, 2023
@christinashouts Replying to @mischief_marauder #harrystyles #replyingtocomments #fyp #wtf #harry #grammys #videoreply #behindthescenes #harryshouse #aiw
@cinemasbitch harry and the dancers had to do the routine they had worked on for a week one way, in reverse on LIVE television 😅 #harrystyles #fyp #foryou
