Timothy Norris/FilmMagic
The Harry Styles dancers at the 2023 Grammy Awards took to social media on Monday to reveal that while they were on live TV the turntable they were practicing on malfunctioned and started spinning in the wrong direction.
“What you don’t know is that the moment the curtain opened and it was time to play, our turntable started spinning backwards.” said Brandon Mathis, one of the dancers, in Instagram story. “Back. We were all freaked out on live TV, and there was nothing we could do to stop it. In real time, we had to troubleshoot and try to do a complete piece backwards. Talk about professionalism.
According to another dancer, Dexter, Harry and his team practiced the choreography for 10 days before the Grammys. Defending comments online that called Styles’ performance “boring” and “lethargic,” Dexter said that despite failed attempts to get the technicians’ attention, the dancers had to make the most of it and reverse any their choreography on location.
“We rehearsed for 10 days to get down these beautiful formations and slide off the table into a roll-off and just do this amazing, morphing, cool artistic shit and Harry did such a great job of fitting into it,” shared Dexter in a TikTok video. “All this time we practiced with the platter rotating counter-clockwise. It was difficult and frustrating to create these patterns while something was moving and to have all this spatial awareness. At the general rehearsal, it was magnificent, it was incredible. We go on stage for the show, the show starts and the turntable spins the wrong way.
rolling stone contacted representatives of Harry Styles 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 Engineering Album and Album of the Year for Harry’s housea shock to many critics and fans who expected Beyoncé to win the award.
