The music video for " Chandelier " was released on 6 May 2014 , featuring then-11-year-old dancer Maddie Ziegler . In the video , Ziegler wears a medium-length blonde wig matching the one that Sia used to promote the album . Throughout the video , Ziegler performs an interpretive dance in a deserted , dirty apartment " while spinning , kicking , leaping , crawling , falling , twirling and hiding herself behind window drapes " . An alternative one-take version of the clip was released in June 2014 . Sia had seen Ziegler on '' Dance Moms '' and asked her to appear in the video via Twitter . The video was directed by Sia and Daniel Askill , shot by cinematographer Sebastian Winterø and was choreographed by Ryan Heffington . Ziegler shared her thoughts about the choreography with '' New York '' magazine : I like the whole dance . It was really different and weird for me , because I usually do n't , you know , be a crazy person every time . It was so fun to do and it was really out of the box and it expanded me a lot , because I 'm used to competition dances where you 're like , " Point your legs ! " But this time it was like , you just need to let go and feel it . The choreography was praised by media outlets ; an editor from '' The Guardian '' wrote that Ziegler " dances with such impressive flexibility " . Nolan Feenay from '' Time '' magazine commented that the dance moves in the video could be the best dance routine of 2014 . " Chandelier " received nominations at the MTV Video Music Awards for Video of the Year and Best Choreography , and ultimately won the latter . It was also nominated for a 2015 Grammy Award for Best Music Video . The video went viral on YouTube and became the seventh most-watched video on the video-sharing website of 2014 . As of March 2019 , it has received over 2.0 billion views and was , at one point , the 13th most viewed YouTube video of all time . It has since moved down to the 33rd most viewed YouTube video of all time . As of January 2015 , '' Billboard '' ranked the video at number 12 on the list of the 20 best of the 2010s ( so far ) . Both '' Rolling Stone '' magazine and '' Spin '' magazine named it the Best Music Video of 2014 . '' VH1 '' listed it first among the " most groundbreaking " videos of 2014 . In 2016 , several items related to the " Chandelier " video were introduced into the " Right Here , Right Now " exhibit of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame . In 2018 , '' Billboard '' ranked the video the 18th best music video of the 21st century
MTV Video Music Awards
2014 MTV Video Music Awards
Chandelier (song)