Taylor Swift gave her all to perfect three hours worth of Eras Tour choreography — especially since dancing doesn’t come naturally.
“Everybody’s got their things they’re good at. It’s taken me a really long time to be even fine at choreography,” Swift, 35, said in the second episode of her docuseries The End of an Era, which hit Disney+ on Friday, December 12. “Mandy [Moore] knows how to approach teaching me choreography from a lyrical perspective.”
Swift entrusted Emmy-winning choreographer Moore, 49, to craft each dance routine on Eras. Moore, unrelated to the This Is Us actress of the same name, has created performances on Dancing With the Stars, So You Think You Can Dance, La La Land and more. She later reunited with Swift for the pop star’s “The Fate of Ophelia” music video that dropped in October. (Swift wrote her 12th album, The Life of a Showgirl, which includes “The Fate of Ophelia,” in the middle of her international Eras concerts in 2024.)
As Swift embarked on Eras, cameras followed her every move for The End of an Era to share backstage secrets about the entire journey.
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“I don’t do eight counts. I learn based on what syllable of the lyric I’m attaching a movement to, and I can’t really learn any other way. I’ve tried,” Swift said during a doc interview about working with Moore. “Learning the choreography, it’s not just doing a step for the sake of doing a step, it’s all very visual and it makes sense to me narratively.”
Swift further revealed that she was inspired by the “team of experts” backing her up onstage.
“It also is interesting to be in a position where … this is a team of experts, and there’s something about that [that] keeps me on my game and focused and locked in,” Swift said. “It’s one of the elements where that kind of pressure is a privilege, because they’re not messin’ up, so it better not be me!”
Before even learning Moore’s choreography, the Grammy winner worked on her stamina.
“Every day I would run on the treadmill, singing the entire set list out loud,” Swift previously told TIME in December 2023. “Fast for fast songs, and a jog or a fast walk for slow songs. Then, I had three months of dance training because I wanted to get it in my bones. I wanted to be so over-rehearsed that I could be silly with the fans, and not lose my train of thought.”
Swift confirmed to the outlet that her regular gym, Dogpound, created a special workout regimen incorporating strength, conditioning and weights to help her prepare for the feat that was the Eras Tour.
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“Her work ethic is just incredible,” personal trainer Kirk Myers told Vogue in April 2024. “Some people would probably throw up or have to lay down on the floor if they trained like her. We approached her training for the Eras Tour with the mindset like a professional athlete. There was an ‘off-season’ when she wasn’t touring and ‘in-season’ when she was. When she’s not touring, we’re in the gym up to six days a week for sometimes two hours a day.”
The first two episodes of Taylor Swift’s The End of an Era are currently streaming on Disney+.
