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The Best Beyoncé Performances That Didn’t Make It Into Life Is But a Dream

Beyonce performs live on the pyramid stage during the Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm, Pilton on June 26, 2011 in Glastonbury, England.
Beyonce performs live on the pyramid stage during the Glastonbury Festival at Worthy Farm, Pilton on June 26, 2011 in Glastonbury, England. Photo: Ian Gavan/Getty Images

By now, you have either gotten a chance to watch the Beyoncé-produced, Beyoncé-written, Beyoncé-directed documentary that premiered on HBO this weekend, or you have read a lot about it on the Internet. If you tuned in, you got a chance to see Beyoncé methodologically preparing for an array of performances, including her Back to Business tour, the 2011 Billboard Music Awards, and the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards (a.k.a the pregnant “Love on Top”). They were all (ahem) perfect! But since Life Is But a Dream is only 90 minutes long, many of Bey’s best recent performances didn’t make the cut. Here are our favorite missed moments from the Beyoncé Hall of Fame.

“Crazy in Love” at 2011’s Glastonbury Music Festival
To include anything but Beyoncé’s appearance at the 2011 Glastonbury Music Festival was a huge misstep. Her Prince/Kings of Leon cover is unforgettable, and in case you forgot, “Crazy in Love” is so good it definitely doesn’t need Jay-Z’s verse.

“Move Your Body” for Michelle Obama
Michelle Obama asked her BFF Beyoncé to adapt B’Day’s “Get Me Bodied” into “Move Your Body” — complete with workout-themed choreography for the National Association of Broadcasters Education Foundation’s Let’s Move! campaign. When she surprised kids at PS 161 Pedro Albizu Campos Middle School in Harlem? One of her best performances.

“I Was Here” at Roseland Ballroom
Around the same time that the Diane Warren–penned ballad “I Was Here” became the song of 2012’s World Humanitarian Day, Beyoncé sang it during her four-night stint at Roseland Ballroom. From that came a DVD and an accompanying montage (check that wedding dress!).

“1+1” backstage at American Idol
It took a stealth video show by Mr. Beyoncé Knowles (a.k.a. Jay-Z) to get people onboard with “1+1”. You can see why it worked. The actual Idol performance isn’t too shabby, either.

“Girls (Who Run the World)” at the Oprah Winfrey Show Finale
Not her best — that belongs to the Billboard performance in Life Is But a Dream — but Beyoncé’s performance “Girls (Who Run the World)” for Oprah Winfrey’s final show is notable for its graduation theme (“I’m repping for the girls who taking over the world/ Help me raise a glass for the college grads”) in which commencement speaker Beyoncé mimes distribution of diplomas to her legion of newly graduated dancers.

2013’s Super Bowl halftime show
The lead-up to Beyoncé’s Super Bowl halftime show could most likely inspire its own documentary. (And who’s to say it hasn’t? She’s always filming.)

“Halo”
If anyone ever questions Beyoncé’s singing abilities, this is the performance you should be storing in your bookmarks, ready to load up at a moment’s notice. Proving that no one can do “Halo” much like she can, this campfire acoustic performance has Beyoncé as stripped down as she comes. And as we saw in Life Is But a Dream, an unscripted moment for her is nearly impossible.

The Best Beyoncé Videos That Weren’t in Her Doc