Gatson remembers it took eight hours, while Bey herself once said the shoot lasted 12 hours. It's why the 3-minute, 18-second video took somewhere between eight and 12 hours to shoot. So instead of breaking the song up into parts, which is how music videos are typically shot, the dancers performed the entire dance at least 50 times all the way through, Gatson estimates. Beyoncé wanted the video to feel like one single shot. On set, t he dancers performed the 'Single Ladies' routine at least 50 times in its entirety.

According to Gatson: 'She kind of turned her heel over a little bit, but when we went over to give her ice, she said, 'Nobody's going to stop me from doing a Beyoncé video.'' (And they didn't.)ġ0. About 25 takes in, Ebony nearly injured her ankle - and kept on dancing. One of the backup dancers had an accident halfway through the shoot. 'It was funky, but the ballet training made the technique and the alliance look incredible.'ĩ.

'I think there's something about their ballet training that brought a different class to ,' Gatson says. Unlike Beyoncé herself, Ebony and Ashley were both trained heavily in ballet. Understudy Ebony William stepped up to the plate along with Ashley Everett, the other backup dancer who was cast from the get-go:īoth women are still touring with the queen, according to Gatson. The original dancer slated to appear in the video was supposed to come to New York for the video shoot, but she didn't get in in time, according to Gatson. One of the dancers who appeared in the video was an understudy. She wants the girls to be beautiful … She's not the type of artist that's intimidated by another beautiful woman,' Gatson says.ħ.

'Beyoncé wants a star to be on stage with her. But casting for the video was child's play compared to selecting dancers to perform with Beyoncé on tour: Gatson estimates they auditioned some 5,000 women. 'We went through a lot of different ladies - short ones, tall ones, girls exactly Beyoncé's height,' Gatson recalls. About 100 women auditioned to dance beside Bey.

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