Ariana Grande's "God Is A Woman" performance stole the show at this year's MTV Video Music Awards. Just like her memorable music video for the song, the live performance was chock-full of references to Christianity and the art it inspired.
On stage, Grande recreated arguably one of the most famous Christian paintings, Leonardo Da Vinci's "The Last Supper." On stage with 50 other female dancers, Grande embodied a Christ-like figure by seating herself at the middle of a long table, leaning against the woman seated to her right. As the song kicked in, Grande and her all-female crew lithely moved from pose to pose. It's sexy, it's evocative, and, other than Jennifer Lopez's gold-tinted Video Vanguard montage, it was hands down the most creative and exciting performance of the night. Grande's number created a message of unity and a goddess-like power of the divine feminine. "God Is A Woman" is one of the many singles from Grande's chart-topping album, Sweetener, which dropped on August 17.
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Fans on Twitter were obsessed with the art history references (which were reminiscent of Beyoncé's own obsession with recreating historical images in her album art, concerts, and award show performances). Of the powerful performance, one fan gushed, "performance of the night by a million miles. these visuals, the diversity of the beautiful dance crew, ariana’s vocals, the outfits, the creativity recreating the last supper, nonna & joan’s appearance 2 of the most hardworking, incredible women ever." Another agreed, adding, "Yo @ArianaGrande really did dat shit. Recreating 'The Last Supper' while performing #GodIsAWoman & then brought out her mom and grandmother was EVERYTHING!!!! Best performance throughout the whole show!!!"
Grande did in fact bring out her grandmother and mother at the end of the performance, which given the sexual nature of the song makes it even more iconic.
God's a woman, and this is her jam!
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