Ariana Grande's 2018 MTV VMAs Performance of "God Is a Woman" Featured 50 Diverse Female Dancers
Ariana Grande has a lot to celebrate tonight at the 2018 MTV Video Music Awards: She made her red-carpet debut with fiancé Pete Davidson, picked up an award for Best Pop Video for her hit single "No Tears Left to Cry" from her fourth album Sweetener, and even shared a sweet BFF moment with Nicki Minaj. Oh, and killed it with her performance of "God Is a Woman" when she took the stage in New York City's Radio City Music Hall.
Wearing a bejeweled crop top, miniskirt, and thigh-high boots—and without her usual high pony—the singer was surrounded by a diverse group of 50 female dancers, according to Billboard, all of different skin tones and body types. Some flanked Grande at a long table, reminiscent of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper, while others posed by the massive pillars and galaxy background behind the tableau.
At the very end, after the dancers had belted out the final few bars of the song along with Grande, her mom, grandma, and cousin Lani joined the group onstage for maximum girl power.
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Kevin Mazur/Getty ImagesThe live performance of the song—its first-ever—clearly referenced the visuals of the “God Is a Woman” video, which Grande released in mid-July. In the video, Grande channeled a wide variety of powerful women, fitting for a song about being empowered in her own sexuality. In the clip, she floats in a paint-filled pool resembling one of Georgia O’Keeffe’s female anatomy–inspired paintings, takes on the role of the mythical she-wolf mother of Romulus and Remus, and fills in for God in her all-female interpretation of Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam. Noticeably missing from the VMAs performance, however, was the quick cameo Madonna makes partway through the video, reciting a Bible verse while Grande, wielding a sledgehammer, lip-syncs along.
Between the music video and, now, Grande’s live performance of the track, we’re going to need Lush to put out that “God Is a Woman”–inspired bath bomb ASAP—so we can literally soak in all of the song’s goodness.
Related: MTV VMAs 2018: All the Photos of Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson Looking Cute
