Andy DehnartOn Dancing with the Stars’ 2021 Halloween episode, aka “Horror Night,” JoJo Siwa performed an impressive and yet still terrifying jazz routine to a haunting but familiar song: a remix of Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes.” But who exactly performed and produced that song?
The music helped make the performance haunting and terrifying, but it was mostly haunting and terrifying because because Dance Moms alum JoJo was in full costume and makeup as the clown form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown from Stephen King’s It.
Honestly, Dancing with the Star has previously terrified me with its cheesy cover songs and generally creaky, tired format, so it was nice to be scared by something new.
JoJo’s performance was called “terrifying” and “absolutely brilliant” by Bruno Tonioli” and “scary” by Len Goodman, who said “I’m glad I’ve got on my rubber underpants.”
Aside: anyone complaining about JoJo’s—or other contestants’—dancing experience: DWTS is a popularity contest that has long cast people with dancing experience, and then tripped all over itself while trying to justify that.
Anyway, on the DWTS season 30 Halloween episode, most of the cast’s costumes were impressive: Iman Shumpert and Daniella were in Us jumpsuits and used the characters’ movements from the movie in their dance; Amanda Kloots had face makeup to resemble the Jigsaw doll from the Saw franchise; and The Miz and Whitney had Hellraiser pinhead makeup, complete with the pins.
Cody Rigsby as Patrick Bateman from American Psycho was a little phoned in, as was Kenya Moore’s alleged Arachnophobia outfit, which was just an outfit with a spider web motif.
While JoJo’s costume is still haunting me, the song was so catchy I listened several times last night. It uses the lyrics of Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes,” which was written for the 1934 Broadway musical Anything Goes. But what is this version?
What song did JoJo Siwa dance to on DWTS’ Halloween 2021 episode?
I wanted to find it. Alas, Shazam failed me repeatedly. I tried searching YouTube and then Spotify, but both failed to uncover anything except the original. This morning, I tried again, and searching for “anything goes dance remix” led me to an answer. (Oh, and naturally, the YouTube video of the performance ABC identifies last night identifies it, too.)
The song is by District 78, which describes themselves on their website as:
…a production team best known for their work on Dancing With The Stars (ABC), So You Think You Can Dance (FOX), and many other television shows, including America’s Best Dance Crew (MTV), The Masked Singer (FOX), World of Dance (NBC). They have helped craft unique and memorable performances for these shows and for artists like Jennifer Lopez, Ciara, FKA Twigs, and Ne-Yo, and more.
The performer is Patrice Covington, a Broadway singer and actor who appeared as Erma Franklin on NatGeo’s Genius: Aretha as Erma Franklin.
So the song’s official title is “Anything Goes (feat. Patrice Covington)”, and there’s a reason I couldn’t find it easily: it won’t be released on their Spotify account until Friday. They did put the song on YouTube—though there’s no mention of Dancing with the Stars in the description, which explains why it was so hard to find last night.