Beyoncé and ‘Legendary’: Ballroom culture went mainstream. Now it looks to preserve its roots
It’s hard to say which part of Beyoncé’s performance at Sunday night’s Super Bowl halftime show was more captivating: the elaborate stage setup, her tight jeans and towering head of hair, her laser-beam-worthy voice or the spectacle of her dancing legs.
Or even the fact that her performance came after her mother-in-law’s onstage rant that made headlines all over the world for attacking Beyoncé.
In a rare interview with “CBS This Morning” this week, Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles, opened up about her daughter’s career and her own battle with breast cancer, which she told CBS she had been diagnosed with in 2010, when Beyoncé was in her early teens (she was 13 at the time).
“She’s the most important part of my life,” Knowles said. “I want people to know that as an inspiration… I just want to inspire young women to know, you know, you can do it, you can be what you want to be no matter what. No matter who you are. You are enough.”
The mother-of-three, who was at the Super Bowl to see her daughter perform, also spoke about the growing trend of people dancing and of making room for more women in the party scene.
“What I love is [the Super Bowl] is one of the first times that we’ve had, ’cause we had it back in the 70s, the first female dancer on our TV,” said Knowles, who is also a longtime ballet dancer. “I love, really love, that moment of, ‘I can be my own woman, I can dance like my own woman.’ And now, I am really happy and honored to be able to be here, to be a woman, to be Beyoncé.”
Knowles wasn’t the only person at the Super Bowl Sunday to take to the dance floor – and make room for a woman, in at least one sense. The most powerful female dancer in the world, Juelz Santana, also danced at the halftime show, and CBS’ Scott Simon called this the night that “came of age” for women in dance.
