CONCRETELOOP.COM

Kenzo Digital, the new media artist and film director who is responsible for Beyonce’s much talked about performance this past Sunday at the 2011 Billboard Music Awards spoke with YAHOO.COM on Tuesday to explain how everything was organized and that Bee was in fact inspired by Lorella Cuccarini’s performance.

Beyonce also spoke with AOL MUSIC about how she was inspired by Lorella and the team behind her performance:

BEYONCE ON THE INSPIRATION:
“My makeup artist showed me the performance of Lorella Cuccarini a year ago, and it inspired me so much,” Beyonce tells AOL Music, exclusively. “I then met with the talented people who worked on it. The technology and concept were so genius. Thank god for YouTube or I would have never been exposed to something so inspiring. I never worked so hard on anything in my life as that performance for the Billboard Awards.” [ SOURCE ]

KENZO ON THE “COPYING” CONTROVERSY:
Kenzo admits that Beyoncé’s team was initially inspired by a similar performance by Italian singer Lorella Cuccarini. “[The Cuccarini artists] are awesome and do incredible work as well, but there are a lot of different inspirations for where our piece came from,” he said.

“That’s the thing, it’s very simplistic. If anything, it’s a great example of how great of a performer Beyoncé is. It’s just a bare white screen. It’s a technique in video art since the ’80s in terms of frontal projection and interactive things. That’s really nothing new. It’s not even a new technology. It’s just an incredibly simple, awesome storytelling device, and with a performer like Beyoncé it becomes incredibly powerful.”

Continue