And by “plagiarize all over the place,” I mean blatantly rip off Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker in her ridiculous new music video. Seriously, check out that video above and tell me that Beyonce just landed herself right in the middle of a big coincidence. You can try, but I won’t believe you.
Here’s what the original choreographer had to say about Beyonce’s dance moves:
“I didn’t know anything about this. I’m not mad, but this is plagiarism. This is stealing. They took pieces from Achterland and Rosas danst Rosas. … It’s a bit rude, I must say. … What’s rude about it is that they don’t even bother about hiding it. They seem to think they could do it because it’s a famous work. … Am I honored? Look, I’ve seen local school kids doing this. That’s a lot more beautiful.”
I haven’t had any personal interest in Beyonce since her Destiny’s Child days, and let me just say that is not the Beyonce that I pretended to know. The Beyonce I pretended to know would have never stolen from another artist like this, she’d just be like “giiiiirl, I don’t do that shit, I just bounce around in clubs and chill in monochromatic rooms, you know that!”
You’ve changed, Beyonce. You’ve really changed.
an homage if ive ever seen one. (btw, is it *an* or *a* homage, even if the *h* is silent?)
From Adria Petty, the co-director of the video: “I brought Beyoncé a number of references and we picked some out together. Most were German modern-dance references, believe it or not. But it really evolved,” she told MTV News, calling it “an evolving, spontaneous process…The references were then dispersed to her creative team (hair, makeup, wardrobe), and they interpreted them on the set in their own special way. Of course, one of the strongest wardrobe references was Audrey Hepburn in ‘Funny Face’ when she does the beatnik dance scene. I think a lot grew from there,” Petty continued.
They referenced a lot of stuff in the video and, yah, they didn’t explicitly say that they pulled ideas from this specific work, but they didn’t deny it, either. They acknowledge it. Although it’s a popular dance work, it’s pretty obscure for the general population and, hey, now at least more people will know about it. In pop culture today, pretty much everything is a rip-off of something else. Beyonce has publicly acknowledged that she draws inspiration/choreo from many different sources and I think she is just paying homage. Stop being a sourpuss and, if you don’t like Beyonce, stop listening to her. I think the song and video are adorable and the video cleverly incorporates a lot of different sources. (Side note: If you want to talk plagiarism, look at anything by the Black Eyed Peas.)