Beyoncé’s “Homecoming” Brings #Beychella to Netflix
Beyonce’s “Homecoming” is a celebration of historically black colleges and universities.
By Mayte Peña
Highly anticipated by fans and critics alike, Beyoncé’s performance in Netflix’s “Homecoming” is a celebration of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Premiering April 17th on Netflix, the concert film highlights Beyoncé and her performance at the 2018 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.
Beyoncé explains in her documentary that when she decided to do Coachella, it was important to her that she bring her community to the music festival. From dancers, backup singers, and the band itself, the whole crew was transformed to resemble a student body. In “Homecoming”, Beyoncé features a new sorority, Beta Delta Kappa (BAK). She proudly wears the sorority letters on her custom-designed yellow hoodie.
The star grew up in Texas and always dreamed of going to an HBCU. Despite her original plans, My college was Destiny's Child,” she says within the film. She expresses satisfaction with what she’s been able to accomplish, given her humble beginnings: “It’s hard to believe that, after all these years, I was the first African American woman to headline Coachella.”
The documentary emphasizes how hard Beyoncé worked to bring an amazing performance to Coachella, which was her big return to the stage. We all know that Beyoncé can pull off a great show, but she explains how her first-time back home was not easy. The documentary shows how the singer struggled with her body during her first rehearsals after giving birth. She explains, “I wasn’t feeling myself”.
After giving birth to her twins, Rumi and Sir Carter, her body was not the same, and she struggled with high blood pressure and toxemia. The latter is a condition in pregnancy, also known as preeclampsia, characterized by abrupt hypertension a sharp rise in blood pressure, albuminuria leakage of large amounts of the protein albumin into the urine and edema swelling of the hands, feet, and face. According to google.
But after all her hard work, her two-hour Coachella performance was no exception to her amazing performance record. Hit songs like “Crazy Love” Freedom” Formation” among others had fans and the whole Coachella audience on their feet, dancing and enjoying the performance.
For the last set, she brought to the stage her two best friends and ex-members from the girl group Destiny’s Child: Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland. For one night the girl group reunited for a couple of songs with famous hits like “Lose My Breath”, “Say My Name”, and “Soldier”. Old fans of Beyoncé and the group were shocked by the unexpected reunion and welcomed the trip down memory lane.
“I enjoyed the performance.” said Liselotte Fana, 22, a dance major at Queens College who currently works as a dance instructor at Planet Fitness. “It was about everyone on stage and that made it a very wonderful performance.”
Fana’s favorite part of the film was Beyoncé explaining the process of coming up with the playlist, choreography, and visuals to portray message she wanted to give to the audience. She said, “since I choreograph myself, I got inspired to make my own version of the choreos.”
