By TOBY STERLING
Associated Press
AMSTERDAM
Miley Cyrus opened MTV’s Europe Music Awards with her hit song “We Can’t Stop”–while wearing a space-themed silver spandex suit and twerking with a female dwarf.
To the delight of the crowd in Amsterdam’s Ziggo Dome, Cyrus finished the number by sticking out her tongue–the same expression she flashed repeatedly during her eyebrow-raising appearance at MTV’s Video Music Awards in New York in August.
The European awards traditionally focus on global, rather than U.S. pop music acts, though the overlap is huge: Justin Timberlake and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis are nominated in five categories each.
The “intergalactic”-themed show is scheduled to be rebroadcast in the U.S. later Sunday.
Among early winners were Katy Perry for Best Female Artist. Perry, apparently caught by surprise, spit out a sip of champagne and took the stage to thank her fans.
During her performance, she hung suspended by wires as green lasers reflected off her mirrored outfit.
Bruno Mars won Best Song for “Locked Out of Heaven.”
In Cyrus’s opening act, she “twerked”–gyrating and shaking her buttocks –in the general direction of her smaller dance partner. The partner, dressed in a similar outfit in black, then returned the favor.
The number concluded with Cyrus among a mob of dancing women dressed up as fanciful extraterrestrials.
Later in the show, the 20-year-old Cyrus also performed her current top hit “Wrecking Ball” against the backdrop of a giant video screen of herself crying.