A Dance Mystery
Now that the election is over (and Tiny Fey is trying to make her life a Palin-free zone) it looks like Saturday Night Live has gone back to being a hit-or-miss (mostly miss) proposition.
One thing that was pretty funny was the “We’re the Dancers” skit with Justin Timberlake and Beyoncé. Gotta love Andy Samberg, Timberlake, and the chubby guy in leotards and high heels, being all faux-Beyoncérrific. And them doing a tragic imitation of the choreography from Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” video just a few minutes before she actually performed the number was a bit more editorial than I think Team Beyoncé anticipated; when she ended up doing that dance later with those two back-up girls, it was kinda horrible.
The mystery is, Why does the choreography for the video look pretty good, but the version of it they did on SNL was a spastic mess? I’m serious. If I didn’t have the “official” video to refer back to, I could start charting the decline of contemporary dance from what they did last night. Sucked. Sucked big, gagged, and then lost its dinner.
I guess I could watch last night’s peformance again, and try to analyze why it was artless, hapless, and senseless. And don’t forget spastic. Definitively spastic. But — and this may elicit a heave of relief in certain circles — I’m not gonna go back and watch that painful thang again. It’s too unnerving.
But it was different from the video. In ways painful and debilitating.
December 3rd, 2008 at 2:23 pm
[...] when I was criticizing the Beyoncé “Single Ladies” dance as somewhat spastic, I had no idea it was such a [...]