In an earlier post today, I brought you the joy that is Gwen Verdon’s dance number, Mexican Breakfast, with her various moves helpfully explained. An astute reader pointed out that the dance moves looked suspicially like Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” video dance moves (beloved by single babies around the world).
Now it turns out that not only are Beyonce’s moves similar to Gwen’s, they are directly cribbed from her.
Here are the two videos intercut with eachother to show the similar moves:
[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yhlbni8C3XI 425×344]
You might wonder how Beyonce would have ever even heard of Gwen Verdon, but it’s not that surprising being that Gwen was married to choreographer extraordinaire, Bob Fosse.
At some point I do believe Beyonce admitted that her video was inspired by Fosse.
Fosse has inspired some other famous dance moves as well. I nearly fell off my chair when I saw this video of Fosse playing “the Snake” in the movie version of “The Little Prince.” (never saw it). Check out the dance that starts at around 3:21. Look familiar? Michael, Bob and Gwen must be putting on some pretty great dance shows up there in the great beyond.
[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8mJsgPj1iU 425×344]
