What Does Beyoncé See in Josephine Baker?:
A Brief Film History of Sampling La Diva, La Bakaire
"In feathers, in bananas, in her own skin, intelligent
body attached to a gaze. Stripped down model, posing for a savage art,
brought color to a primitive stage."
—Harryette Mullen, Trimmings, 1991
Perhaps those inclined to gather for an international conference to
celebrate and analyze Josephine Baker were among the only observers in
the television or Internet audiences unsurprised, if intrigued, by
Beyoncé Knowles's[1]
recent evocations of and tributes to Baker. A preview
of the banana dance that the pop star would perform on CBS's
presentation of Fashion Rocks[2]
came on September 7, 2006, when
Beyoncé appeared on Good Morning America.[3]
Beyoncé sat for an
interview with Diane Sawyer in order to promote her new record
B'Day, during which she curiously, remarkably, announced her
affinities with Baker. The segment alternated tightly between sequences
of images from Beyoncé's coming-up years, accompanied by Sawyer's
voice-over, and sequences of the one-on-one sit-down between the two
media figures.[4] It
also included clips of black-and-white footage
featuring Baker dancing. Via references to Baker in the interview,
Beyoncé presents herself as a woman coming into her own who is ready to
defend herself or make an attack, as suggested by the militaristic tone
in the album title's rhyme with "D-Day." Beyoncé also appeared to me as
a performer claiming a history of audacious black female creativity,
exemplified—we'd all agree—by Baker, the original Diva.
The singer had recently celebrated her 25th birthday, on which she
debuted songs from the album in a live concert in Asia. Sawyer and
Beyoncé's conversation centered on this year as a turning point in
Beyoncé's life, but it also marked a professional transition because she
recorded B'Day independently. The new album, then, stands for
Beyoncé's independence in significant ways. One is how she recorded
B'Day on her own, without, she said, the knowledge of or input
from her usual management. Further, Beyoncé seemed to be seeking a
renewed sense of self-direction following her work as the character
Deena in the film Dreamgirls (Bill Condon, 2006), which required
her to undergo a strict dietary regime. She said of her weight loss, "I
didn't feel like myself. And this album was my release. That's why it's
[the tone of the album] so aggressive. Because I had been in Deena's
body or Deena had been in me for so long that I had all these emotions
that I, in my life, don't—didn't—feel." Returning to Sawyer's narrative
of the album's back-story, the host explains that Beyoncé "fused that
fire into her music, recording B'Day in a secret studio session
far away from her record label and manager father." How this
story-within-a-story format functions in Beyoncé's promotional
appearance will be addressed partially below, while considering the
greater question of what it means for Beyoncé to evoke Baker at this
juncture in her career will be my main task.
Beyoncé was nuanced and explicit in her statements about Baker in the
GMA interview. She told Sawyer what qualities in Baker inspired her,
saying, "I wanted to be more like Josephine Baker [than perhaps like
Deena, who is a more repressed character], because she didn't—she seemed
like she was just possessed and it seemed like she just danced from her
heart, and everything was so free. ... This record sounds like a woman
possessed. It sounds like a woman that is kind of desperate, and I
wanted it [the album] to come from the soul. I just did whatever
happened there [in the studio]."[5]
Thus, Beyoncé describes her own
liberated feelings in terms of the paradoxical notion of possession as
freedom. Possession suggests total consumption by something outside the
self, a kind of imprisonment and lack of power, yet it implies its
opposite as well: self-absorption that transcends or otherwise violates
established conventions, whether social or personal. Possession is a
kind of abandonment. Beyoncé's word choice—possession—acknowledges her
power while also potentially disavowing it: the music came; she did not
make it, nor does she claim to control it. Yet, what dominates here is a
sense of freedom and self-possession. Beyoncé sought to capture Baker's
dance practice, which is characterized by total movement, a sense of
possession (see the music-hall party sequence in Princess Tam
Tam) and unpredictability, controlled with her own bodily
intelligence. Therefore, while promoting her new album on GMA,
Beyoncé delivered her conceptual association with Baker's aesthetics,
central to which for her is this idea of possession or
self-possession.
In her performance on Fashion Rocks [watch the video on youtube.com],
Beyoncé delivered a
literal Baker sampling. When the sequence opens, a projected drawing of
Baker in the banana skirt is visible as the camera floats over the
audience toward the stage. Beyoncé's name in huge gothic script set in
clouds follows. The stage fills with smoke. Beyoncé enters the scene,
thrusting her hips with her arms high above her head, wearing a version
of Baker's banana skirt. In the opening moments of the Fashion
Rocks dance, Beyoncé performs a direct quotation of Baker's famous
banana dance, which is accessible through film footage. The historical
reference contextualizes Beyoncé's erotic dancing, which includes
thrusting her derriere powerfully and circling her hips slowly while she
tosses her hair and, adding a comic touch, clicks her neck from side to
side. After a segment where she dances and sings with the clouds
covering her waist, she stands to dance, and screens behind her rise to
reveal a well-known image of Baker's face.
Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
Next page
|
