#oscarperformance

My favorite duo!!!!! 𖦹 ☼ ⋆｡˚⋆ฺ☆▪︎•°~¤~°○▪︎☆~. ☆ ▪︎.~■~.▪︎ ☆•

Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande's performance at the Oscars WAS MAGICAL ˚˖𓍢ִ໋❁˚˚˖𓍢ִ໋❁˚˚˖𓍢ִ໋❁˚☼ ⋆｡˚

CREDIT: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Pretty much everything about Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper’s performance at the Oscars was all my favorite stuff. Face intimacy. Like they were the only ones in the room. Heated. Waiting. Patience. Chivalry velveted in respect. Hot admiration. My-pulse-humps-so-your-pulse-humps-type of thing. A tension so clearly an art tension, layered with learning about themselves and each other, as artmakers and people, during this collaboration. After reviewing the performance today, here are ten consecutive moments of Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper’s 2019 Oscar performance of “Shallow” that cut my heart, burning joy, love, art, and #moltencollaborationgoals deep, spreading them around like a kind of marmalade.

The lyrics. “Modern world,” “do you need more” (who doesn’t? That can be simple--more simplifying, not more stuff… #Gagawordsmith, my sense is she lead wrote with three co-writers), making “shallow” a noun (a literary orgasm for a poet). The song is scorch dialogue. Yes.

Bradley learning to sing. Went...really well. That nuanced country croon in “fallen” at his soliloquy at the beginning. Not all actors learn how to sing (or really achieve it) for their films. Melting.

Gaga touching herself, her stomach, slowly, when Bradley begins, “longin’ for change.”

How Gaga turns and walks over to the piano like her life depends on it. Pulse imperative.

The moment Gaga begins singing, Bradley smiling like he never heard her sing before. Also, like he just came home.

Actually, everything about Bradley as Gaga sings. Moving his head with her voice, her words, her. Body breathing. Singularly focused, contemplating, considering, moved so much, head full of their song.

Gaga singing, “where they can’t hurt us,” passion pointing herself.

Bradley rocking his face like Mick Jagger, then YEAAAAAA, then picking up the microphone stand like a hot rock dance move, punctuated, sexy AF, when Gaga deepens the chords, plays ravenously.

Their faces in the finale. Gaga’s fluttering eyelashes, Bradley’s closed eyes.

Once they finish: the way they look at each other like they are under a blanket. Just them.