One of the choreographers of ATEEZ's song, "Say My Name" finally released a statement video discussing the plagiarism controversy as a part of the movement he and his team created for ATEEZ.
It was previously known that there was a controversy where Vata, the leader of the We Dem Boyz (WDBZ) crew, had plagiarized a part of the choreography of ATEEZ's song "Say My Name", which was composed by Josh Smith, Anze Skrube, and Johnny Erasme.
ATEEZ has also touched on Vata WDBZ several times in this regard indirectly, making 'biting' movements in some of their public appearances.
The choreography was pinned by Vata WDBZ for the opening song "New Thing", which is one of the missions of the Mnet program, Street Man Fighter.
Previously only reposting criticism from ATEEZ fans in the story, today (11/10) Anze Skrube has released a video via Instagram, @anzeskrube, discussing the problems that have occurred recently.
"Hi all how are you? This is Anze.
I want to briefly discuss the accusations of someone plagiarizing our movement and first of all I want to say that I want to have a positive effect through this video. So everyone, please stop attacking each other regarding this.
Regarding this clarification, in my experience, there is a difference between 'biting' a movement or being inspired by a movement, or 'biting' a whole series of movements. What happened in this case was, this series of moves was created by Josh Smith in late 2018 and released in early 2019.
I'm just saying, things like that happen a lot in the dance industry and that's not a good thing. Please don't do anything like this. If you're inspired by something, you can at least give credit for making it, and I'll just cover it here.” explained Anze long and closed by inviting to spread the positive effect.
To date, neither Vata nor WDBZ have released any statements regarding the many criticisms and accusations of plagiarism in the "New Thing" choreography. (www.kpopchart.net)
