sia

Twenty minutes. A mere 1,200 seconds. That’s how long Sia remembers it took Maddie Ziegler to learn the now iconic four-minute choreography to her 2014 hit song Chandelier , a routine that irrevocably changed both their lives. At the time, the two had little or no expectations that the film clip was going to explode the way it did. Ziegler, then an 11-year-old prodigy from reality TV show Dance Moms , had flown to the west coast from her home in Pittsburgh for the job after Sia (a fan of the show) reached out via Twitter.

“It was completely insane, especially for a whole new language of dance for her. I couldn’t believe how professional, sweet, grounded and talented she was,” remembers Sia of the young dancer who they filmed flinging around in what appeared to be a dilapidated apartment wearing a white-blonde wig and dirty nude leotard.

But Sia jokes she’s been told she has a gift for curating things (“Even people for dinner parties and stuff”). Her high-octane chorus matched with erratic choreography from Ryan Heffington and the choice to use Ziegler – who until that point was the epitome of all-American wholesomeness – for a song about partying and alcoholism, was gold dust.

“I thought it would be really interesting to pair [Maddie] with Ryan’s really super-refined modern dance choreography, my pop song and my direction of a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown,” she says of the calculated choice. “I feel grateful that I took the chance on throwing that whole thing together, the actual mishmash of what you wouldn’t ordinarily [see].”

Six years on the video has been viewed more than 2.2 times on YouTube – the equivalent