{"id":659094,"date":"2026-03-16T06:24:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T06:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/659094\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T06:24:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T06:24:12","slug":"oscars-choreographer-breaks-down-kpop-demon-hunters-sinners-performances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/659094\/","title":{"rendered":"Oscars choreographer breaks down ‘KPop Demon Hunters,’ ‘Sinners’ performances"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 You know Mandy Moore\u2019s A-list choreography \u2014 from Taylor Swift\u2019s<\/a> monumental \u201cEras Tour\u201d<\/a> to the Oscars, where her show-defining work includes Ryan Gosling\u2019s performance of \u201cI\u2019m Just Ken\u201d<\/a> in 2024 and last year\u2019s \u201cWicked\u201d-ly<\/a> energetic opening. At this year\u2019s Academy Awards, her goal was \u201cto come out big again,\u201d she told The Associated Press ahead of the ceremony. And \u201ca big thing about these performances this year is you\u2019re not just celebrating the songs. You\u2019re celebrating the film.\u201d<\/p>\n

She did exactly that throughout the ceremony, and certainly for its two tentpole performances: Ejae, Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami, the voices behind the fictional girl group HUNTR\/X, who performed \u201cGolden\u201d from \u201cKPop Demon Hunters\u201d<\/a> and Miles Caton and Raphael Saadiq tackling \u201cI Lied to You\u201d from \u201cSinners.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

For the former, Moore served as a creative director. \u201cIt\u2019s a huge song. \u2018Golden\u2019 is huge.\u201d she said. \u201cThere are two pieces to the performance: The first piece is a celebration of traditional Korean culture. And there is traditional drumming and singing and folk dance. And it then transitions into obviously the more kind of modern pop world of the \u2018Golden\u2019 performance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Preparation was extensive. \u201cImmediately I went to the Oscars team and said, \u2018I need to work with someone who is a Korean consultant and I would also love to hire this person to be in the performance.\u2019\u201d They landed DaEun Jung, associate professor from the University of California at Riverside, an expert in \u201cnot only the dance styles, but the wardrobe and the music and the singing,\u201d Moore continued. \u201cSo, she has really been integral to that whole process of creating the prologue.\u201d She also agreed to dance in the \u201cGolden\u201d performance.<\/p>\n

Because \u201cKPop Demon Hunters\u201d<\/a> is an animated film, Moore said \u201cthere\u2019s kind of no rules\u201d in what could happen with the performance \u2014 as long as the filmmaker\u2019s tone and desires are met. And \u201cin no way did they feel that we needed to create a live action performance of this song, to try and do it like the animation. Because you can\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

They also didn\u2019t want the performance to only utilize \u201cK-pop moves,\u201d Moore said. After all, \u201cI am not a K-pop choreographer.\u201d It\u2019s not a K-pop concert, but rather, a performance that emphasized \u201ccreating visuals.\u201d <\/p>\n

However, audience members did wave golden light sticks \u2014 a common feature of K-pop concerts \u2014 and a wonderful nod to that culture.<\/p>\n

Moore also had the idea to incorporate gold flags into the performance. \u201cThe way the flags move through the space feels, visually, like I hear the song,\u201d she said. \u201cIt needed to be event television, in a way \u2026 Something that is so epic in nature and scale that it really transcends just somebody singing and dancing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moore was a bit less involved with the \u201cSinners\u201d Oscars\u2019 performance.<\/a><\/p>\n

That\u2019s because they engaged \u201cdirectly with the choreographers and the filmmakers from \u2018Sinners,\u2019\u201d she said, led by the movie\u2019s head choreographer Aakomon \u201cAJ\u201d Jones. He\u2019s the man responsible for the incredible dance sequence when \u201cI Lied To You\u201d is performed in the movie \u2014 which speaks to why the Oscars\u2019 performance was a near-recreation of the iconic scene.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m simply here as a support to Aakomon,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

In addition to Caton and Saadiq, the \u201cI Lied To You\u201d performance featured Misty Copeland,<\/a> Eric Gales, Buddy Guy, Brittany Howard, Christone \u201cKingfish\u201d Ingram, Jayme Lawson, Li Jun Li, Bobby Rush, Shaboozey and Alice Smith.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s exactly \u201cwhat you would want from a \u2018Sinners\u2019 performance on the Oscars,\u201d Moore said. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the throughline for both performances is that they start with storytelling, first,\u201d she said. \u201cIts story involved with dance. It\u2019s not simply dance steps.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

For more coverage of the 2026 Oscars, visit https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/academy-awards<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 You know Mandy Moore\u2019s A-list choreography \u2014 from Taylor Swift\u2019s monumental \u201cEras Tour\u201d to…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":659095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[29],"tags":[15797,276999,279055,279057,279058,184279,276,435,168,171,279054,57,267316,6467,279056,86970,222585,226960,53,975,278491,147450,23898,145444,3571,61,67,132,68,107],"class_list":["post-659094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-academy-awards","tag-academy-awards-oscars","tag-alice-smith","tag-bobby-rush","tag-brittany-howard","tag-buddy-guy","tag-california","tag-celebrity","tag-domestic-news","tag-entertainment","tag-eric-gales","tag-general-news","tag-jayme-lawson","tag-k-pop","tag-li-jun-li","tag-mandy-moore","tag-miles-caton","tag-misty-copeland","tag-movies","tag-music","tag-raphael-saadiq","tag-rei-ami","tag-ryan-gosling","tag-shaboozey","tag-taylor-swift","tag-u-s-news","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-world-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116237426279485413","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}