“JaQuel may be temperate in enforcement, but [another choreographer] may say, ‘Take every flash mob down.’ ” A platform like YouTube might “want the courts to render a populist opinion where it’s not enforceable in the first place,” the attorney continues, “or else they can be abused by copyright holders.” (YouTube declined to comment for this story. What kind of synchronized ass shake is this?’ ” he says, bursting into laughter. Copyright Office. Why did you think this is something a choreographer should have? In the three years after “Single Ladies” became a pop culture phenomenon and inspired countless imitations — including on SNL, Glee and even in a Chipmunks movie — Knight’s starting day rate roughly tripled. “A collecting society does two very compelling things for creators: It creates a scale whereby they can collect revenues, and it’s a force for creative people — a political force and an economic one,” says Stanford University Law School’s Paul Goldstein, a global authority on intellectual property. By Deborah Searle. The prescience JaQuel has is so important: It’s a way to awaken his artistic community, [to tell them] that they are ignoring one of the most important tools in the toolkit.”. "Single Ladies" is an uptempo dance-pop and R&B song with dancehall, disco and bounce influences. “You feel like you stand for something,” says Knight, his voice cracking a bit. When you look at the video, as much as it's about the moves, it's also about the feeling and the intent. Beyond those initial points of inspiration, Knight had free rein to workshop any ideas he had, in the studio with Beyoncé. If you look online, it is easy to find side-by-side comparisons of the “Single Ladies” and “Mexican Breakfast” videos flagging the very reference points that Gatson and Knight intended, as if there’s a game of choreographic “Gotcha!” going on. AdChoices And all things don't require movement: Choreography isn't only about "move, move, move, move," and "5, 6, 7, 8." You may not be familiar with the names JaQuel Knight and Sean Bankhead, but there’s a very good chance you know their work. It makes use of staccato bounce-based hand claps, Morse code beeps, an ascending whistle in the background, and a punchy organic beat. (He was only charged for the incident in October.) Advertising He has, symbolically, joined the canon of important contemporary choreographers: As Weber points out, the bureau has worked on scores for choreographers going back to modern dance pioneer Isadora Duncan — “and, now, through to JaQuel Knight.” After so many years of serving other artists’ visions, Knight can finally claim ownership of his own. Over the course of five weeks, she completed a 40-page-long score for “Single Ladies,” and she has moved on to “WAP.” “My son sometimes walks in on me,” she says with a laugh. Beyoncé's dance moves in the music video can be complex at times, and it may take some practice to get them right. “It’s potentially as important as the revelation that Ray Charles negotiated back ownership of his masters. ... Wonder Girls enlists "Single Ladies" choreographer. Every performance has been elevated since I started working with JaQuel.”, In July, rapper-singer Tory Lanez shot Megan in both of her feet following a party they’d attended. Gatson was auditioning dancers for Michelle Williams (of Destiny’s Child), and Knight — who, in person, has the assured bearing of a performer but a compact build — was considered too short. Now 31, Knight is one of the music industry’s most sought-after choreographers, a creator of iconic dance-centric visuals at a time when they can propel a song to the top of the charts and even change the course of a career. You tap on your cheek just a little bit, you look at it, and then you go back into your choreography. According to DiCampli, choreographers can get between 0.75 and 3.5 points on a show’s gross revenue, depending on their experience and whether the show recoups its investment — a figure that includes future productions and touring companies. You may not be familiar with the names JaQuel Knight and Sean Bankhead, but there’s a very good chance you know their work. Several things could account for that. Letting every piece of your body have energy that can pierce the camera lens, so people at home can feel you. Knight describes his current role with her as “more than choreographer or creative director — essentially, the guy who figures out the overall image when it comes to performance.”, It’s a role he has inhabited before, for artists like Tinashe and Zara Larsson ready to break through to the next level of stardom. Grooming by AJ Crimson. Knight landed his breakthrough gig at 18 years old for Beyoncé's iconic video "Single Ladies". For Knight, “every movement has a purpose, and it’s about the music but also about the full package of what the dance is interpreting,” says Shakira, who worked with him on her Super Bowl halftime show this past year. For a Black creator in an industry that has long appropriated Black culture — and who often works with the industry’s most influential Black female artists — the score represented something bigger, too. He first visited Japan when he was invited to teach dance workshops in Hiroshima in 2004, and since then has worked as a choreographer for major Asian pop artists and groups including Jolin Tsai, Namie … Even amid the coronavirus pandemic, he’d had a busy past few months. JaQuel Knight, the architect of Beyoncé‘s “Single Ladies” dance, spoke out about this in a new cover story with Billboard. “This is potentially a seismic event in this space,” says Lateef Mtima, the founder and director of the Institute for Intellectual Property and Social Justice and a professor of law at Howard University. But when it became public knowledge, it awakened modern-day artists to start thinking about their intellectual property from that perspective. Now that I'm picturing Beyoncé as your grandmother, I'm never going to look at this video the same way again. “So how can I share this knowledge with everyone else, and start to build something even my kids can live off of? Tell me about how you incorporate video, music, movement, stillness and speech to create something that is more than just entertainment. Hear the radio version at the audio link, and read on for an edited transcript. Being not only a choreographer but a creative director, I'm the one who envisioned the the performance from start to end — I sit down and walk Megan through the show. As the centerpiece of culture-changing music videos, that choreography has profoundly changed the way Black women are portrayed. This article originally appeared in the Nov. 7, 2020, issue of Billboard. Today, choreography still feels a bit like the Wild West of copyright. Yahoo Life. (They are also not choreography experts, though they analyze choreographic submissions regularly for consistency’s sake.) Critics have compared the song to Aretha Franklin's "Respect" and Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive", prompted by their lyrics, which all promote female empowerment. Meet the choreographer behind Beyoncé's iconic moves. “Today’s choreography, it all seems like, ‘Do a booty dance, act nasty, walk.’ But this young man had something very fresh and new.” He later hired Knight to choreograph a different Williams project and saw that he could organize a room full of “professional dancers, who are sometimes prima donnas” and clean up their movement without sacrificing its funk and soul. We’re getting used and abused.”. Reporter. “I don’t want to hit steps every day for the rest of my life,” says Knight. Knight’s movement is undeniably sexy, but always on the artist’s own terms: A woman dancing his choreography looks like a queen, even when she’s twerking in a position that might seem to defy gravity. There are certain hit songs that are almost inseparable from the dance moves that go with them. Favorite Answer. 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