The latest viral news doing the rounds in social media is in reference to Beyoncé’s award winning video for her 2008-released dance-anthem, ‘Single Ladies’.
As an old video from the 1960’s reemerges online, showing uncanny resemblence of the dance routine with Beyonce’s ‘Single Ladies’ music video, sparked the whole debate about Beyoncé having stolen the choreography from the same.
But, did she?
The old video is actually from The Ed Sullivan Show, 1969 as the three ladies are seen performing a dance routine entitled, ‘Mexican Breakfast’ – choreographed by Bob Fusse and also featuring his wife Gwen Verdon.Beyoncé had already issued a clarity on the similarities before, but most people still don’t seem to know about it. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the pop superstar was quoted telling, “I saw a video on YouTube. [The dancers] had a plain background and it was shot on the crane; it was 360 degrees, they could move around.
And I said, ‘This is genius.’ We kept a lot of the Fosse choreography and added the down-south thing – it’s called J-Setting, where one person does something and the next person follows. So it was a strange mixture … It’s like the most urban choreography, mixed with Fosse – very modern and very vintage.”
So as it turns out Beyoncé’s iconic ‘Single Ladies’ video was largely inspired from the 1969 Fusse routine – including not just the steps but also the platform on which the trio is seen dancing. Not that there’s anything wrong with taking inspiration from other artists or sampling their work on your own.
Beyoncé’s ‘Single Ladies’ is still unique and special as the ‘Bootylicious’ diva brought her own flavor to the routine and turned it more fierce and sexy than the original.
What do you guys think of the similarities?
Check out the original video from the Sullivan show below: