Beyoncé has been accused of liberally sampling from Rosas danst Rosas, a work by Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, a major contemporary choreographer. It's not the first time she's been accused of borrowing moves. Echoing Blake Gopnik, Alva Noë defends the practice:
Sampling is nothing new, not in art, and not in life. Every time you use a word or phrase you are, wittingly or not, making a pastiche out of the linguistic gestures of those who came before you. Evolution, whether in biology, or in technology and culture, is never anything other than a redeployment of old means in new circumstances. We use the old to make the new and the new is always old.
Willa Paskin points out the obvious:
"Countdown" alludes to many things other than De Keersmaeker's work (most notably Funny Face), but maybe it's time Bey cooled it with the homages to folks who are not that famous — or at least paid them and/or asked for their permission before sampling their work. Who would say no to Beyoncé? And then instead of "stealing," she could just be remixing.
The Dish 