Taylor Swift wanted to work on her reputation when it came to her dancing, so she hired choreographer Mandy Moore.
In an interview with The New York Times published Sunday (Oct. 26), the choreographer opened up about working with the pop superstar to hone her movement skills before embarking in 2023 on her global Eras Tour, which saw Swift looking better than ever as she held her own in several different dance numbers. Before that, though, Moore says the 14-time Grammy winner was insecure about her abilities.
“She’d gotten a bad rap for a long time about her dancing, so she was really in her head,” the dance coach recalled to the publication. “We shifted the focus to how movement was already manifesting in her body — the way she naturally wanted to move. And then we fine-tuned that: ‘OK, that looks a little weird with your shoulders,’ or, ‘Let’s straighten your knee here.’”
“I really admire Taylor’s tenacity,” Moore continued. “She works so hard. Whatever I was putting down, she was picking up. And she’s very clear about what she wants, which I love.”
Elsewhere in the interview, the choreographer spoke in general about how she demystifies dancing for her superstar clients. “Dance is so vulnerable, and that feeling is only magnified by how famous the person is,” she explained. “Some of these artists have been sort of traumatized by dance. And so I end up as a kind of dance therapist.”
“A lot of it is really just getting in a room and being like, ‘Look, here’s this thing that I love, and you can love it too!’” Moore added.
Though Swift’s Eras trek is memorable for a boatload of reasons, one of them is how she clearly leveled up dancing-wise for the excursion. Fans went wild every night for her sexy Chicago-esque chair dance during “Vigilante Shit,” as well as her sultry, serpentine moves throughout the Reputation set.
The hitmaker has continued working with Moore throughout her The Life of a Showgirl era, teaming up to create TikTok trend-worthy choreography for Billboard Hot 100-topping lead single “The Fate of Ophelia.” In Swift’s The Release Party of a Showgirl film, she perfects her own dance moves while on set of the track’s music video, telling the crew at one point, “Can I just try to be a little bit better?”
