We are still obsessing over Normani’s latest music video and one of the scenes had us seeing double for a minute. We have been wondering who the dancer was and finally, we found her.
Normani’s ‘twin flame’ is Joya Jackson, a 21 year old dancer who has been dancing for most of her life.
In an exclusive with Girls United she shared –
“As soon as I hopped out the womb I was moving and grooving,” the dancer told Girls United. She cited Destiny’s Child, Alicia Keys, Missy Elliott, and Ashanti as major influences for her when she was growing up and talked about bopping to their radio hits around the house.
Her mother noticed her passion for movement early on, which made her ask if Jackson wanted to be put into a professional dance studio. The rest is history.
Jackson has since been featured in Ariana Grande’s “34+35” music video and Cardi B’s “Up.”
On meeting up with Normani
“I’ve known Normani since ‘Love Lies’ came out because at the time I was on tour with Khalid,” Jackson said.
“In February 2019, my agent contacted me about her audition to have dancers for [Ariana Grande’s] Sweetener Tour.
She and Sean Bankhead selected me as one of her four tour dancers and the rest was history. We’ve been a tight-knit family ever since,” Jackson revealed about her relationship with Bankhead and the “Motivation” singer.
On filming the music video
The most intensive part of filming the video was definitely the all-black leather ‘boys’ section.
We like to call it the boys’ section because we presented our best masculine energy,” Jackson said as she referred to the scene featuring the raved-about dance sequence.
“The choreography was already hard, but when it came to shooting, it was about 85 degrees outside, we were in all black leather, and we were dancing on plexiglass to be safer than dancing on the hard concrete.”
About dancing as Normani’s double
“The hardest part for me was remembering to look away from the camera as much as possible so that it was easier for the editor to put Normani’s face on mine when need be,” she revealed.
“The choreography was also super difficult — [I] never did anything like that before,” Jackson continued.
“Figuring the section out with Mani was the most fun. We would laugh at ourselves time and time again when we couldn’t get it right but would get right back into go-mode because there was no way we couldn’t get this section down.”
Read her entire interview here.
