I asked Angel to describe his ideas for Britney Spears' disastrous comeback at the Video Music Awards show in Vegas in September. Angel had been working with Spears on ideas for the performance that would have required a lot of rehearsals and effort from the star. Instead, Spears opted for more traditional choreography in a performance that, rather than announcing her return to the stage, marked the beginning of her total meltdown over the months that followed. But if she had gone with Angel's approach, what would we have seen?
"With Britney I presented concepts to create, within her performance, illusions that would happen in the open. You would see Britney and then she would split into two Britneys and then four Britneys with no boxes or covers. It would just be a visual effect using no screens. People in the past have used the art of magic in music performances but mostly in a cheesy way. Magic has not kept up with popular culture and technology.
"Other things I wanted to do with her was to literally transform her into birds and then for her to reappear in the audience. I also thought of having her levitate over the audience. It was going to be really visual moments that were all epic tableaux that were beautiful, artistic, elegant and, most important, unique -- things MTV hasn't seen in music. I wanted to captivate people in the moment. That was the essence of what I wanted to do with the Britney performance, because I think the performance she did with the snake was a highlight of her career and I wanted to trump that and I thought we had it."