This Phoenix dancer performed in the World Cup halftime show with Shakira

LAUREN GILGER: OK, Mark, I know we were just talking about baseball, and you're a big baseball fan, but did you watch the World Cup final last month?

MARK BRODIE: Yeah, of course. Huge global sporting event, I wasn't going to miss that.

LAUREN GILGER: Right. OK, good. So, aside from the huge win by Spain over Argentina, let's talk about my favorite part. It was the first World Cup final to have a Super Bowl-style halftime show. Did you watch that?

MARK BRODIE: I did. We saw Madonna, we saw Mr. Ted Lasso himself we were just talking about with Coach Beard. Justin Bieber was there, and my personal favorite, the Muppets.

LAUREN GILGER: All in one show, that's right. Shakira and Burna Boy closed things out with the official World Cup anthem of this year's tournament — and one Phoenix dancer was handpicked to dance with Shakira in the show.

MARK BRODIE: Sounds like a really cool opportunity.

LAUREN GILGER: It really was. So, show producer Athena Ankrah caught up with her after the performance to learn how it all happened.

[MUSIC CLIP PLAYS]

ATHENA ANKRAH: Ella Waitz has been a dancer for as long as she can remember. What you’re hearing now is from a video of an 8-year-old Waitz and her childhood best friend performing a dance routine at a local talent show in an outdoor amphitheater in Litchfield Park back in May of 2015.

They choreographed a dance to Shakira’s song, "Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)," from the 2010 World Cup. In matching pink T-shirts and black shorts, the two show off a one-handed cartwheel and trade sides of the stage.

Waitz couldn’t have known that just 11 years later, she’d be again dancing to a new World Cup song by Shakira — side-by-side with the "Hips Don’t Lie" singer herself.

Waitz was selected to be a featured dancer in Shakira and Nigerian rapper Burna Boy’s performance at the first-ever World Cup Halftime Show during the final match in New Jersey.

She got the job because of a social media video.

ELLA WAITZ: So the song had just come out ... and we made a whole video, me and some other girls. And it was out in Santa Monica on the pier, and we just filmed to the song a bunch of different shots at the beach. We had no idea about even the possibility of dancing with Shakira, we just did it for fun.

And then a couple days later, we saw Shakira posted on her story and said she's looking for dancers to kind of take on that challenge and do a dance to her song. And we're like, wow, we have this entire concept video ready to go. So Enola posted that, and right away Shakira posted it on her story saying, "Hey girls, you'd be perfect to dance with me in the finale."

ATHENA ANKRAH: From there, it was a series of pinch-me moments.

ELLA WAITZ: We all just started freaking out. We were so excited. I was a little scared to be excited.  It was insane, and I, like, could not believe it. There were so many steps where I was like, is it really it? We were even joking on the plane ride over there. We're like, OK, can we be happy now?

ATHENA ANKRAH: After more than a month of anticipation and excitement, costume and shoe fittings and weeklong rehearsals, the performance itself lasted about two minutes.

Waitz’s family held a watch party from their neighborhood sports bar in Goodyear, keeping an eye out for Waitz’s unmistakable fiery auburn hair.

[RECORDING FROM FAMILY WATCH PARTY]
 
ELLA WAITZ: They did not tell me this, but my mom had cardboard cutouts of my face, like, on a stick. I came home for a little bit, and I went into my bedroom, and it was, like, a bunch of me everywhere. It really scared me. [LAUGHS[

ATHENA ANKRAH: Now that the show is over, Waitz is adjusting to her normal life as a dancer and actor in LA.

 
ELLA WAITZ: It does really give me motivation and inspiration, and just, I wanna just keep pushing, keep pushing. I think that experience was just insane, getting to work with some of the best of the best.

ATHENA ANKRAH: But she’ll always have the memory of this once-in-a-lifetime experience. And a performer-exclusive bracelet from FIFA. And a TikTok dance video Shakira filmed with the girls from her hotel room before the performance.

For KJZZ's The Show, I'm Athena Ankrah.