Mariah Carey’s production designer and producer Rohit Kapoor and director, creative director and choreographer Debbie Allen share a behind-the-scenes look at the star’s performance of “All I Want For Christmas Is You” at the 2023 Billboard Music Awards Presented by Marriott Bonvoy.

Rohit Kapoor:
I’m Rohit Kapoor, and I’m production designer and producer on the show. You know, it all comes from the music. There’s nostalgia to it. There’s tradition to it. And for this performance, she really just wanted to kind of take us out of what we’re used to seeing for the song. But it still feels really Christmas and really magical. Everything really starts with Mariah, and she’s just this amazing collaborator. She really wanted it to be something different that we hadn’t seen, and exploring Christmas in the song in a different way. This process started, I think it was like, two in the morning, and I just texted her an image saying, “What do you think of this?” And it just led to us having a three-hour-long creative call, going back and forth on what she loved, and so we took that and we look to recreate that feeling and that look on stage. Debbie just added her magic to it, and she’s incredible, you know. She made this happen in two days.

Debbie Allen:
I’m Debbie Allen. I’m the creative director, the director and the choreographer for Mariah Carey’s performance. The concept started way before two days ago. But I’ve been working with Mariah Carey since her Butterfly Tour many many years ago.

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