Last night at the MTV VMAs, Kanye West premiered the video for his Life of Pablo song “Fade,” starring singer and G.O.O.D. Music signee Teyana Taylor. The video, which is currently a TIDAL exclusive, features Taylor doing a sweaty, Flashdance-esque dance routine in a gym, and culminates in a shot of Taylor transformed into a lioness, posing alongside fiancé (and Cleveland Cavaliers player) Iman Shumpert and an infant. (Taylor and Shumpert have an eight-month-old daughter.) Pitchfork spoke to veteran choreographer and artistic director Jae Blaze—who has worked with Rihanna, Will Smith, Jennifer Hudson, and more—about her work on the “Fade” video, and how she believes Taylor is a “superwoman.”

Pitchfork: What was Kanye’s role in the making of the video?

JB: Kanye, I can't stop saying it, he's just a creative genius. When he came in, he told us, “I like this particular move, but I want to take it to the next level. Show me what you can do on top of this move.” He has something specific on his mind, as a visionary. And we have to translate that onto Teyana's body. Teyana's a beast, so it really made our job easy as far as, “Hey Teyana, give him what he wants. Let's do it this way. Let's try it this way.” That's basically how the day went down.

Pitchfork: Can you remember any specific things Kanye was pushing for?

JB: There is this particular movement called “bruk back.” It's a Jamaican dancehall dance, created by the dancers Outshine Crew. It's basically very gritty, a very earthy movement where you pound your back. He gave us a vision on how to incorporate some other locking and popping movement into that particular dance move, and you see Teyana doing it there in the video.

Pitchfork: What was the dynamic between you and the other choreographers (musician/actor Fonzworth Bentley and Guapo) when shooting the video?

Jae Blaze: Teyana came in basically with a set of choreography that her and Guapo had been working out prior to the actual shoot. I was called in the day of, saying, "Hey Jae, we want to use some elements of your dancehall choreography to put into Teyana's performance." Between Fonzworth, Guapo, and I, we basically just came together as creative minds and just smoothed out the edges, watched what looked great on camera, and gave Teyana artistic direction. She takes direction so well, and it made our job really really easy. It was just the coming of three minds putting stuff together that looked good on camera and made it what it was.