There were more personal interactions earlier on. At the end of our first tour, the Dream Within a Dream, all of the girls-because there were four girl dancers and four boy dancers-we all got together, and she invited us to her house for a day of movies and lunch and that kind of thing. Of course, on all occasions she's a part of the rehearsal process, but we did outside things, a lot of outside things. The earlier days more so than the later days. Was she supposed to wear what she wore? There had been so many rumors about why she wore underwear.įrom my understanding-we're never involved in the wardrobe process-so what she wore on stage, I thought that was the outfit.ĭid you have a lot of interaction with her in the earlier days? If I can remember, it was the first two weeks was just the dancers, and then once they got us set, they brought her in. I believe it was like three weeks-three or four weeks. They got us underway first with all the choreography because we did rehearse a long time for the 2007 one. I remember for that one more so we rehearsed first. I enjoyed that performance most out of the three-not to say I didn't enjoy the others, but that one was my favorite because of the production. I would have to say out of all of them that was my favorite one. It didn't end up working, but they put a lot into that performance because it was her first time back in a while. He'd even come into our rehearsals because they were planning to have some sort of magic trick reveal. Because it was the first time it was in Vegas, her team consulted with a magician, Criss Angel. In 2007 they were using her performance as the headliner, so the stakes were really high. The third one was a little different because I think she hadn't performed at the VMAs in a while. Each time the level of production got even better. She had a snake, there were tigers in the cage-twice the number of dancers. The second time the stakes were up even further, where we're all painted like jungle animals. The first time, of course, they made history with her classroom style performance and her choreography. How did the 1999 VMAs differ from the 20 shows?The first two were both choreographed by Wade Robson. Oh my God, he called us at home, we were just-that was our first major job-and we were just so excited, so excited. When he was set to choreograph the VMAs for her, he called us and asked us if we wanted to do it.
That was my first job with her and how I got that was the choreographer Wade Robson was her choreographer at the time, and my sister and I used to train in his dance class.
My first job with her was her first VMA performance in '99. She spoke to Broadly about the behind the scenes of Spears's infamous VMA appearances.īroadly: When did you first perform with Spears?Īminah Abdul Jillil: It would be '99.
She has also worked with Janet Jackson and as Spears's background dancer on her 2001 Dream Within a Dream Tour, 2004 promo portion of the Onyx Hotel Tour, and the 2012 Femme Fatale Tour. Backup dancer Aminah Abdul Jillil performed with Spears during three of her VMA showcases: her first VMA in 1999 with NSYNC, her "I'm a Slave 4 U" snake dance in 2001, and the 2007 "Gimme More" debacle. But fans still obsess over her VMA performances of the past decade, wondering what happened behind the scenes. Spears rebounded, releasing several commercially successful albums and a Las Vegas residency show that made her one of the highest paid musicians of the past two years without releasing an album. Read more: Shonda Rhimes on the Making of 'Crossroads' The album brought dubstep and other then alternative sounds to pop radio, leading Rolling Stone writer Rob Sheffield to call the record "the most influential album of the past five years." Critics considered her career dead, but the fiasco launched Spears's most critically-acclaimed album, Blackout. At her last VMA performance in 2007, Spears forgot to lip-synch parts of "Gimme More." MTV had billed the show as a Spears comeback after four years away from the music industry that included marrying a white rapper, two rehab stints, shaving her head, and many bad wigs.