“In real time, we had to troubleshoot and try to do a complete piece in reverse,” said Styles’ backup dancer
Harry Styles’ dancers during the 2023 Grammy Awards took to social media on Monday to reveal that while on live television the turntable they practiced on malfunctioned and began to spin in the wrong direction.
“What you don’t know is that the moment the curtain opened and it was time to perform, our turntable started spinning in reverse,” said Brandon Mathis, one of the dancers, 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.”
According to another dancer, Dexter, Harry and his team practiced the choreography for 10 days leading up to the Grammys. Defending comments online that called Styles’ performance was “boring” and “lethargic,” Dexter said that despite trying to unsuccessfully get the technicians attention, the dancers had to make the best of it and reverse their entire choreography on the spot.
“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,” Dexter shared in a TikTok video. “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.”
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Rolling Stone reached out to Harry Styles’ representatives for comment.
This year, Styles was up for six Grammys, including Record and Song of the Year for “As It Was.” That night he won Best Pop Vocal Album, Best Engineered Album, and Album of the Year for Harry’s House, an upset to many critics and fans who expected Beyoncé to take home the award.
